Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mefustae on June 14, 2007, 05:24:38 am
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Take a look:
http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html
It's level-headed, compelling, and logical. Scary, huh?
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intresting argument, i cant wait to hear rush limbaugh bash it.
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scary
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That guy makes a lot of sense! No doubt people will still stick their head in the sands though, I'm off to switch everything electrical I can off (Except my pc of course, I couldn't live without that! Oh and my TV, and Fridge Freezer.......................Etc.) :ick:
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Now if only the atmosphere was warm or ok, he would be right.
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im all for doomsday scenarios. why should i give a **** if the world dies
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ALL Modellers are Evil! And their true desire is to make all gamers bow before their might..... I've said too much:nervous
:eek2:
Anyway in response to the topic n hand, i'd just like to say the following; I'm sure its etter ot have a tropical apocalypse compared to another ice age.
That is all :D
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i live in alaska for a reason, in 10 years, this will be a tropical paradise. and all you people down south will be on fire. muhahahaha!
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I agree with NetFodder.....:
if the bible is true then we can't stop that **** anyway. The only reason I have to choose column A at this point in time is so this guy quits getting gaddamn case loads of diet pepsi trucked into his house.
That's the mindset sending us down.
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i live in alaska for a reason, in 10 years, this will be a tropical paradise. and all you people down south will be on fire. muhahahaha!
Actually, if the doomsayers are right, the artic is warming faster, thus you roast before I do. :p
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I'm currenlty doing a report on Global Warming for colleuge (Physics class) and I have been gathering and looking up a LOT of data.
And the data is scary...very scary indeed. Long stroy short, if we don't do something and fast, we ****ed..
Even if we cut ALL pollution ATM becosue of the degraing (and long-term) aftereffects of what we did so far, the climate would still continue to worsen for a LOOONG time.
Not beliving in global warming is the same as not beliving in oxygen - it not only means you are stupid, but blind as well.
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Hmm.
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I'm currenlty doing a report on Global Warming for colleuge (Physics class) and I have been gathering and looking up a LOT of data.
And the data is scary...very scary indeed. Long stroy short, if we don't do something and fast, we ****ed..
Even if we cut ALL pollution ATM becosue of the degraing (and long-term) aftereffects of what we did so far, the climate would still continue to worsen for a LOOONG time.
Not beliving in global warming is the same as not beliving in oxygen - it not only means you are stupid, but blind as well.
I think you meant if you don't believe in human induced GW.
If so, I'm stupid and blind. :p
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Having hard times tryin to find anything new in it. But the boxes are convining, I guess..
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giving the vastness of the universe and the complexity of the interactions of forces withing it. i wouldnt be supprised if we werent responsible for the shift. sure that big spike in cot levels starting atthe industrial revolution and growing to its present day pointyness looks pretty damn convinsing. but what if it was caused by a shift in our galactic orbit, or perhaps a couple asteroids ran into eachother behind the moon, and sprayed us with super death space radiation from star trek, or perhaps odin and thor are just having a farting contest. our environmental track record is only accurate to about a hundred years and any data from before then just gets less dependable with time. theres just as good a possibility of us just witnessing a cyclical event with a very low frequency. something that happens like clockwork every 5000 years or so. the shortness of the human attention span would certainly conceal such an event. the better safe then sorry argument still applies though.
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Well, the UK Government is starting to wise up.
The fact of the matter is that the chances are quite high that the current climate trend will continue regardless of what we do, as was mentioned in the Video 'Human Caused' is the most common issue, this is the danger of running countries like businesses, there's more effort going into pointing fingers than into dealing with the problem in a rational manner.
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but what if it was caused by a shift in our galactic orbit, or perhaps a couple asteroids ran into eachother behind the moon, and sprayed us with super death space radiation from star trek, or perhaps odin and thor are just having a farting contest.
:doubt:
scary
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I wish people would do some research on this..
I spent weeks reading materials from more sources than I can count.. Hell, my grade depends on this so I did check this out in detail.
So I'm SURE I know what I'm talking about...
Oh and when we go inot the predction of how long will things continue to get worse....we're talking hunderds of years here...maby more
Just CH4 takes over 100 years to finally "decompose" and during that time it constatnly interacts with other molecules in atmosphere..
And there's about 70,000 MILLION tons of in in Sybira, under the now fast melting permafrost...if that goes into our atmosphere it will be like pooring oil into the fir..e
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I would advice to be careful before stepping in to conclusions. It is very difficult to say if human has caused the global warming effect. If I have understood it correctly, the average temperature of the other planets in this solar system have risen also, which would actually point towards a change in the space weather. Simply put, the measurement time is too short to jump into conclusions. And, the climate is not a "constant", but it is varying all the time.
And the most effective way to cut off the carbon dioxide emissions would be to cut down rainforests and slaughter a load of cows, and destroy several microbes from the ocean crust. These combined, according to my knowledge, contribute significantly more than human in the carbon dioxide emissions. However here I'm open to accurate knowledge if someone really has it. Needless to say, I think these measures would never gain popular support.
In the environmental questions, lots of politics is involved. I would advice people to actually calculate the energy spend in the process without the environmental option and the energy spend in the total chain of the environmental option. Sometimes it is an eye-opening experience.
The pollution, is another thing. I personally like clean surroundings and would like to have them as such later also. I have nothing against blocking the dangerous micro-particles away from the air, but there is need for research before one can be sure to block the correct particles away. Having lived two months in one particularly badly polluted city I wouldn't wish that for my worst enemy.
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I wish people would do some research on this..
I spent weeks reading materials from more sources than I can count.. Hell, my grade depends on this so I did check this out in detail.
So I'm SURE I know what I'm talking about...
Oh and when we go inot the predction of how long will things continue to get worse....we're talking hunderds of years here...maby more
Just CH4 takes over 100 years to finally "decompose" and during that time it constatnly interacts with other molecules in atmosphere..
And there's about 70,000 MILLION tons of in in Sybira, under the now fast melting permafrost...if that goes into our atmosphere it will be like pooring oil into the fir..e
Then I suggest you take off the lenses from your eyes and look at the other side.
I'm not trying to be mean nor change your view on this subject, simply put I can't do that. I am not an expert in this category, yet, and I don't claim to be. This a good article to start thinking on.
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ (http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/)
And secondly, if you know anything about weather, you know that it takes far more than a few degrees in the lower atmosphere to change the climate.
The pollution, is another thing. I personally like clean surroundings and would like to have them as such later also. I have nothing against blocking the dangerous micro-particles away from the air, but there is need for research before one can be sure to block the correct particles away. Having lived two months in one particularly badly polluted city I wouldn't wish that for my worst enemy.
Can't agree more, we need to cut down on pollution and protect the environment.
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I would advice to be careful before stepping in to conclusions. It is very difficult to say if human has caused the global warming effect. If I have understood it correctly, the average temperature of the other planets in this solar system have risen also, which would actually point towards a change in the space weather. Simply put, the measurement time is too short to jump into conclusions. And, the climate is not a "constant", but it is varying all the time.
And the most effective way to cut off the carbon dioxide emissions would be to cut down rainforests and slaughter a load of cows, and destroy several microbes from the ocean crust. These combined, according to my knowledge, contribute significantly more than human in the carbon dioxide emissions. However here I'm open to accurate knowledge if someone really has it. Needless to say, I think these measures would never gain popular support.
In the environmental questions, lots of politics is involved. I would advice people to actually calculate the energy spend in the process without the environmental option and the energy spend in the total chain of the environmental option. Sometimes it is an eye-opening experience.
The pollution, is another thing. I personally like clean surroundings and would like to have them as such later also. I have nothing against blocking the dangerous micro-particles away from the air, but there is need for research before one can be sure to block the correct particles away. Having lived two months in one particularly badly polluted city I wouldn't wish that for my worst enemy.
I seriously hope you are being sarcastic.
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I cna tell you iot's darn hard to know what's hte truth anymore.... you got untold dozens of articles, each pushin their own viewpoint.
I do admit I'm far more on the side that belives global warming is caused by us...that doens't mean I'm one sides and that I shut myself to evidence from the "other side" (however intanglibe the concept of sides can be in this case...)
To tell the truth I'm loosing my faith in allmost everything I read on the net these days...no blogs, no sites made by god-knows-who (no matter how much scientific background thy guy claims to have or indeed does have)... just scinetific journals for me...I'd like to belive at least they have remained the beasion of unbiased truth (regarding scientific issues)
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I would advice to be careful before stepping in to conclusions. It is very difficult to say if human has caused the global warming effect. If I have understood it correctly, the average temperature of the other planets in this solar system have risen also, which would actually point towards a change in the space weather. Simply put, the measurement time is too short to jump into conclusions. And, the climate is not a "constant", but it is varying all the time.
And the most effective way to cut off the carbon dioxide emissions would be to cut down rainforests and slaughter a load of cows, and destroy several microbes from the ocean crust. These combined, according to my knowledge, contribute significantly more than human in the carbon dioxide emissions. However here I'm open to accurate knowledge if someone really has it. Needless to say, I think these measures would never gain popular support.
In the environmental questions, lots of politics is involved. I would advice people to actually calculate the energy spend in the process without the environmental option and the energy spend in the total chain of the environmental option. Sometimes it is an eye-opening experience.
The pollution, is another thing. I personally like clean surroundings and would like to have them as such later also. I have nothing against blocking the dangerous micro-particles away from the air, but there is need for research before one can be sure to block the correct particles away. Having lived two months in one particularly badly polluted city I wouldn't wish that for my worst enemy.
I seriously hope you are being sarcastic.
It is actually correct in a strange and convoluted way. in truth, most of our oxygen is produced by the algae that grows on most of the seas surface, the Rainforests put out a lot more Carbon Dioxide than Oxygen, however, the other environmental impacts of doing so would make it a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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The point is that cutting down rainforests would not decrease the carbon dioxide emissions. It would increase them exponentially!
Where do you think the carbon dioxide that's fixed on the rainforest will go? Outer space?
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It will still be stored in the wood, no-one said anything about burning them once you'd cut them down, best bet would be to turn them all into books about the, now extinct, species of the rainforests ;) That's where the danger lies, not from the destruction of the Rainforests, but that the land is being cleared by burning, which IS re-releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere.
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Wood decomposing also releases carbon dioxide. Turning them to books would also release carbon dioxide by the various chemical processes and energy which on average also releases carbon dioxide.
Lose-lose situation. If you want to reduce the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the best bet would be to retain carbon dioxide on the ground which requires doing something like planting trees... oh wait.
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I would advice to be careful before stepping in to conclusions. It is very difficult to say if human has caused the global warming effect. If I have understood it correctly, the average temperature of the other planets in this solar system have risen also, which would actually point towards a change in the space weather.
I'm calling BS on that one unless you can provide some supporting data.
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Trashman, consider these two questions:
Why is there a place called "Greenland" close to the North Pole?
Why there exists some, well, not exactly Mediterranean, but close to Mediterranean traces of plants in the grounds in this country? 700 km away from the Arctic Circle? [Well I'm only 200 km away from it].
As I said earlier, calculating it by yourself is the way to go.
Mika
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Wood decomposing also releases carbon dioxide. Turning them to books would also release carbon dioxide by the various chemical processes and energy which on average also releases carbon dioxide.
Lose-lose situation. If you want to reduce the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the best bet would be to retain carbon dioxide on the ground which requires doing something like planting trees... oh wait.
That's why I said it was a rather convoluted view of things. Actually, producing paper doesn't have to require the creation of CO2, but that's another matter.
This gets quoted quite frequently as a way of reducing our 'Carbon Footprint' on the planet, and frequently overlooks the fact that it isn't 'ours', I'm not arguing with the fact it's better to be planting trees than chopping them down, but, from a single point of view, it works, it's only when you add all the other considerations, such as the other environmental impacts, the cost of actually doing it, the emissions from the machines needed to do it, etc, that it start to look as ridiculous as it sounds :)
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I would advice to be careful before stepping in to conclusions. It is very difficult to say if human has caused the global warming effect. If I have understood it correctly, the average temperature of the other planets in this solar system have risen also, which would actually point towards a change in the space weather.
I'm calling BS on that one unless you can provide some supporting data.
Actually, I've heard of it too, although whether it is related to each other I am not sure.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html)
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I would advice to be careful before stepping in to conclusions. It is very difficult to say if human has caused the global warming effect. ...
I seriously hope you are being sarcastic.
I think what he's pointing out is kind of important to understand in this situation.
Humpty Dumpty has broken but we don't fully understand why. All the kings horses and all the kings men are making big claims about their abilities to fix it, but the horrific truth is they don't know what their doing. Everyone wants you to to throw money at them to fix your problems, but doing the wrong things could easily kill the patient.
A perfect example was the carbon credits idea: Say I've got an industry pissing in my ocean and making the kids sick... but hey thats alright because the owner bought monopoly money from some guy in Russia who's Siberian back yard is spotlessly clean.
Another one is the energy independence push: So we stop using oil from Arabs and, for great environmentalism, start burning coal... which puts us back to square one carbon wise.
The results of reacting to the wrongs things would be wasted money, wasted time, and no environmental savings to speak of.
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I was afraid I was going to sit through almost ten minutes of technical mumbo jumbo, but I was pleasantly surprised. He sums up exactly how I feel. I'm far from an expert on global warming, but all the stuff we pour out into the environment certainly can't be good for it.
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I was afraid I was going to sit through almost ten minutes of technical mumbo jumbo, but I was pleasantly surprised. He sums up exactly how I feel. I'm far from an expert on global warming, but all the stuff we pour out into the environment certainly can't be good for it.
Exactly.
The point here isn't whether or it's happening and whether or not it's out fault. The point here is whether or not we should do something. As the bloke in the video stated, too many of you guys are trying to guess a row rather than pick a column. He summed it up pretty nicely: One of those boxes will be our future, it's simple logic. Based on that, I would think people would want to choose the lesser of two evils, rather than banking on a possible (that is, possible) global catasrophe to save money!
Just leave out all the research, conjecture and overly opinionated morons on both sides, and you're left with a choice between those two rows. Make a choice.
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I was afraid I was going to sit through almost ten minutes of technical mumbo jumbo, but I was pleasantly surprised. He sums up exactly how I feel. I'm far from an expert on global warming, but all the stuff we pour out into the environment certainly can't be good for it.
Exactly.
The point here isn't whether or it's happening and whether or not it's out fault. The point here is whether or not we should do something. As the bloke in the video stated, too many of you guys are trying to guess a row rather than pick a column. He summed it up pretty nicely: One of those boxes will be our future, it's simple logic. Based on that, I would think people would want to choose the lesser of two evils, rather than banking on a possible (that is, possible) global catasrophe to save money!
Just leave out all the research, conjecture and overly opinionated morons on both sides, and you're left with a choice between those two rows. Make a choice.
Bingo. Unfortunately, even when this guy took 9 minutes to explain it (and quite clearly I must say) people still somehow don't seem to get it and are arguing about if its true or not. I don't understand this disconnect. It makes no sense. No logical sense anyways. Someone explain to me how the lesser of the two choices is somehow worse?
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I was afraid I was going to sit through almost ten minutes of technical mumbo jumbo, but I was pleasantly surprised. He sums up exactly how I feel. I'm far from an expert on global warming, but all the stuff we pour out into the environment certainly can't be good for it.
Exactly.
The point here isn't whether or it's happening and whether or not it's out fault. The point here is whether or not we should do something. As the bloke in the video stated, too many of you guys are trying to guess a row rather than pick a column. He summed it up pretty nicely: One of those boxes will be our future, it's simple logic. Based on that, I would think people would want to choose the lesser of two evils, rather than banking on a possible (that is, possible) global catasrophe to save money!
Just leave out all the research, conjecture and overly opinionated morons on both sides, and you're left with a choice between those two rows. Make a choice.
Bingo. Unfortunately, even when this guy took 9 minutes to explain it (and quite clearly I must say) people still somehow don't seem to get it and are arguing about if its true or not. I don't understand this disconnect. It makes no sense. No logical sense anyways. Someone explain to me how the lesser of the two choices is somehow worse?
See the thing is, he wasn't right. He used two variables, either catastrophic heat or a smiley face meaning ok. But, he forgot the third variable, the fact that we could start cooling down at any time. Studying climate is good, but jsut studying global warming will leave us in a truck full of mess when the natural climate changes do indeed happen.
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See the thing is, he wasn't right. He used two variables, either catastrophic heat or a smiley face meaning ok. But, he forgot the third variable, the fact that we could start cooling down at any time. Studying climate is good, but jsut studying global warming will leave us in a truck full of mess when the natural climate changes do indeed happen.
I got the impression he was talking about governments/people curtailing the amount of pollution, carbon dioxide, etc. that they themselves are putting out. How would doing that affect natural climate change?
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It still doesn't matter in my mind. Polluting the environment can't possibly be a good thing...what the climate does as a result is of little consequence and could even be viewed as a separate issue if we reduce our impact to the point where we make little difference either way.
I can see it first hand and I can see what a little conservation effort can do to make a local environmental problem into a success story. Climate change is a great motivator but I think thats for sensationalism...point being that we should be a little more at harmony with our planet so it doesn't bite us back in one way or another. I could even be labeled as a tree huger which would be a typically derisive and belittling statement used on anyone who is in favour of protecting the environment.
I'm all for having stuff (I really like cars) and our fantastic material world but with compromise. But I actually think we can have our cake and eat it too if we put our minds to it instead of arguing who is doing what and what is going on...just clean it up.
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See the thing is, he wasn't right. He used two variables, either catastrophic heat or a smiley face meaning ok. But, he forgot the third variable, the fact that we could start cooling down at any time. Studying climate is good, but jsut studying global warming will leave us in a truck full of mess when the natural climate changes do indeed happen.
I got the impression he was talking about governments/people curtailing the amount of pollution, carbon dioxide, etc. that they themselves are putting out. How would doing that affect natural climate change?
My point is he tried to narrow it down to two columns and seamed to press the point that there is only two things that can happen, we will burn up or it will be a big flop.
It still doesn't matter in my mind. Polluting the environment can't possibly be a good thing...what the climate does as a result is of little consequence and could even be viewed as a separate issue if we reduce our impact to the point where we make little difference either way.
I can see it first hand and I can see what a little conservation effort can do to make a local environmental problem into a success story. Climate change is a great motivator but I think thats for sensationalism...point being that we should be a little more at harmony with our planet so it doesn't bite us back in one way or another. I could even be labeled as a tree huger which would be a typically derisive and belittling statement used on anyone who is in favour of protecting the environment.
I'm all for having stuff (I really like cars) and our fantastic material world but with compromise. But I actually think we can have our cake and eat it too if we put our minds to it instead of arguing who is doing what and what is going on...just clean it up.
I agree with that, I like the environment too, and I agree that we need to do out best to protect it. But trying to save the environment by screaming mass destruction and all is not the way to go. If that does backfire and if the people see they have been lead on, I really doubt they will care about anything natural then.
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What ever happened to 'better safe than sorry'?
My point is he tried to narrow it down to two columns and seamed to press the point that there is only two things that can happen, we will burn up or it will be a big flop.
But he addressed that. Introduce other factors, variables, whatever into the whole thing, and you'll come out the same. Go ahead, try it. It all essentially comes down to what he concluded; we've got ultimately two options: We act, or we don't act. The fact is that if we don't act and we're wrong, the penalty has the potential to be a lot worse than the potential penalty for acting when we didn't need to.
By not acting, we're by default picking the riskier option. Of course, the negative effects of Global Warming actually occurring could be far, far milder than his worst-case scenario, but the likelyhood still exists that it could be the catastrophe he outlines. Are you really willing to sit back and make that gamble a planet that doesn't belong to you, but to your future generations?
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I can't help but note that a HUGE (up to almost a third) of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by the gigantic forests of the Taiga, up by, you guessed it, Greenland, most of Canada, and lower portions of Russia. These vast evergreen forests are one of the major things producing oxygen, not just algae.
Carbon is not just stored in treetrunks either. Not only that, chopping down a rainforest or anything of the equivalent would induce an environmental catastrophe that would quickly take away the advantages of doing so.
No, what you need to be worried about is the ocean. The ocean stores INSANE amounts of carbon, and those rainforests and cows produce an amount thats able to be absorbed by it. But the MILLIONS of TONS of CRAP we are pumping out each day is quickly taking its toll. The entire reason that global warming could be so sudden is because of this - if it gets too bad, the oceans will stop absorbing it - and start emitting it. In vast quantities. Everywhere (starting, theoretically, near south America). Bye bye planet.
There is a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that climate change is induced by us. It becomes starkingly obvious when you look at how the naturally produced CO2 is always absorbed and processed, somewhere, somehow, and usually converted and reused, even if its absorbed by the ocean (which you can think of the earth's backup plan). Our stuff? Its overloading not just isolated ecosystems, but the entire freaking PLANET! Our emissions have destabilized what was once a delicate balance. The backup plan, the oceans, are almost depleted of storage space. The instant the oceans stop inhaling, and start exhaling, we're screwed.
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It is actually correct in a strange and convoluted way. in truth, most of our oxygen is produced by the algae that grows on most of the seas surface, the Rainforests put out a lot more Carbon Dioxide than Oxygen, however, the other environmental impacts of doing so would make it a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Wrong...rainforest put out more O2 than CO2...granted, nut by much, but still.... it's something.
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Trashman, consider these two questions:
Why is there a place called "Greenland" close to the North Pole?
Why there exists some, well, not exactly Mediterranean, but close to Mediterranean traces of plants in the grounds in this country? 700 km away from the Arctic Circle? [Well I'm only 200 km away from it].
As I said earlier, calculating it by yourself is the way to go.
Mika
Sounds nice but I don't have any mesuring equipment, or expertese or a supercomputer to run various climeate models simulations..
Every shmuch out tehre can fakea few original looking grapsh or charts, throw in some scientific lingo behind it and start claiming hordes of stuff.
I wish I never took this subject for my semminary...
Regardless, form what I read in the scientific journals, it appears there is a consensus that we are causing this ****..
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well too bad I didn't come in hear erlier...
anyway, this basicly shoulds like Pascal's Wager with global warming replacing God.
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anyway, this basicly shoulds like Pascal's Wager with global warming replacing God.
Pascal's Wager however is fundamentally flawed in that it assumes that there is only on possible deity. It doesn't consider what happens if you believe in God and Flying Spagetti Monster sends you to hell for it.
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Global warming has more than one planet involved.
...but we have our hands full simply dealing with one.
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Pascal's Wager however is fundamentally flawed in that it assumes that there is only on possible deity. It doesn't consider what happens if you believe in God and Flying Spagetti Monster sends you to hell for it.
...should I be scared that another person on another forum I frequent just posted the exact same response to the exact same statement about the exact same video, using the exact same example? :p
The video's a rather interesting way of looking at things. For the first few minutes, I was wondering, "Okaaay...where's he going with this?", but in the end, he made the point he was trying to make very well. It may have been vastly over-simplified and perhaps a bit more doomsday than even the most dire current predictions state, but in the end, I suppose it really does come down to a question of risk management.
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...should I be scared that another person on another forum I frequent just posted the exact same response to the exact same statement about the exact same video, using the exact same example? :p
No. But I should be. :p
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Karajorma, for more links like WeatherOp posted and speculation about the issue:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028764.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4266474.stm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtml -> this actually points out to an article in the Nature, which I can't be arsed to seek through. DIY.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-05-04-jupiter-jr-spot_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
Is this enough for ya? There is indeed public discussion and data behind this, I'm actually surprised you haven't heard about it as some of the stuff is nearly 10 years old. No-one says they are related. But they might as well be. But note that I didn't say there is a space climate change. I only say they have noticed correlations between these celestial bodies. But of course, you can find correlations with many things. Like global warming and human output of carbon dioxide also. The question is about the credibility of the evidence.
Trashman, the reason why you find it hard to filter out what is relevant and what is not is because no-one really knows at the moment. That is the reason for the schism between "humans did it" and "humans didn't do" it factions. The simulations and the measurement results contradict each other until the scientific sound explanation is given. Granted, the results of each study have been published and used to gain political support more than ever with any other theory, with the exception of Natural Selection perhaps. The thing with weather is that it is something everybody knows something about it and it is easy to make reports that make sense. There has been similar kind of battles between theories going on for a long time, but the background required has prevented them from being published for the general public.
But a good hint would be that no-one can generate a climatic model that would predict the weather two weeks from this on, if even that. Chaotic systems are great. Yet there are simulations ranging over hundreds of years, cited as a true result of things if everything keeps on going like this! Little bit of skeptical attitude for the scientists is a good thing.
If you read through the papers you have collected, you will find that the models are based on certain assumptions. You would be wise to first question those assumptions. That is essentially were the true Science starts. If you can give grounds for yourself why those assumptions are valid, then you are set to go further to actually calculate and predict something. If not, no need to look further.
Then, dividing things between either "we do something to it right now(!)" or "we do nothing at all" are not helping matters either. What if you do it wrong? What if the thing you are doing doesn't help at all? Do you accept a 50 % risk that you are doing it totally wrong? This is why research is needed, until the reasons are indeed found out and effects are repeatable. Then you can start doing something about it. So my suggestion is: Do it right in the first time. There is not another Earth to settle.
Mika
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Also checked through the video. It seems to be pretty much a logic table that starts with two separate questions:
1. Is the global warming caused by humans?
2. Should we do something about it?
Here I spot an important question regarding point 2: If we do something to it, what exactly could we do? The author never answers this question. Talking about doing something doesn't really help if we don't know what to do.
Also regarding the alternative futures he is placing, these are perfectly logical consequeces by given prequisites which he has given. Now, anyone familiar with mathematical logic will quite soon find out that the world does not behave according to laws of mathematical logic. By analogy, there are examples of using mathematical logic successfully for asking direction from a crook and a knight with a simple question. But it only works if we assume that the crook always lies and the knight always speaks the truth. And that you have nothing to fear from the crook if you are standing next to him, so to speak.
So, the whole table he lists is based on assumptions like these. There is more, to say at least. When doing something for the global warming, assuming of course that something could be done, it will only be the developed countries that will give it a try. I wouldn't bet on India or China, whose carbon dioxide emissions are getting higher and higher. Are you ready give away even more competitive advantage for these countries, who don't give rats ass of the global warming? What about the massive influx of people towards warmer regions of the globe, if the emissions were to be cut? You know, houses are not heated up by magic. Are you willing to speed up the shift of global power?
Given the scenario above, the tensions would likely to increase greatly between different countries, leading to more possibilities of war, even thermonuclear war. If you add these on the upper left box, what would be the best course of action? All it seems to me is that this guy would actually risk for WWIII, total destruction of human kind and the planet in an attempt to do something good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Also, this post serves also as an example of leading people towards the solution you wish them to find out, as the original video clip also. Reminds me of days I thought anarchism was a good idea (and probably is, it is the humans which are wrong).
Mika
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What should we do? Theres DOZENS of things we could to to bring CO2 emmisons down significantly. That's an easy one...Problem is very few have actually started doing it.
EDIT: Chaina and India are ALLREADY doing more agaisnt Global Warming than the US is....
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EDIT: Chaina and India are ALLREADY doing more agaisnt Global Warming than the US is....
From this I deduct that you have never been in either country witnessing the situation by your very own eyes.
I would be interested to hear what we could actually do to drop the CO2 emissions. List a few things so I can relate it to the situation here. As a background, recently they found out that we have exceeded the CO2 output limit given by the EU.
Mika
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Use more energy efficint devices.
Use car pooling.
Increase use of renewable energy sources.
More recycling.
And that's jsut for starters...
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EDIT: Chaina and India are ALLREADY doing more agaisnt Global Warming than the US is....
From this I deduct that you have never been in either country witnessing the situation by your very own eyes.
I would be interested to hear what we could actually do to drop the CO2 emissions. List a few things so I can relate it to the situation here. As a background, recently they found out that we have exceeded the CO2 output limit given by the EU.
You found plenty of articles on extraterrestrial climate change, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find something on curbing CO2 emissions.
The main thrust of lower emissions lies in finding alternative power sources, shifting from a chronic reliance on the finite supplies of Oil and Coal. Furthermore, initiatives to curb emissions in other areas of industry and even stretching into residential and commerical sources also stand forefront in a CO2 reduction initiative, such as tackling the emissions made by automobiles. As TrashMan said, there are dozens of ideas, and the main reason nobody important will seriously consider them is because they'll cost us. Money, jobs, financial security. What the bloke in the video was trying to convey was that this is by far the lesser of two evils considering the potential of full-blown Global Warming.
When doing something for the global warming, assuming of course that something could be done, it will only be the developed countries that will give it a try. I wouldn't bet on India or China, whose carbon dioxide emissions are getting higher and higher. Are you ready give away even more competitive advantage for these countries, who don't give rats ass of the global warming?
Bollocks. You're just spouting the same, tired argument of "why do we have to do something of those guys aren't'. Aside from the obvious notions of Western Nations setting an example, pioneering new technologies, and setting up specifically designed protocol and treaties to offer incentives to cut emissions, the fact remains that... no, that's about it. Pioneering new technologies to give to the developing world, collectively drafting bonuses and penalties to nations who combat CO2 emissions, and just setting an example. More than enough reasons for the West to push ahead, rather than just whining that some people aren't mandated to do it just now.
Given the scenario above, the tensions would likely to increase greatly between different countries, leading to more possibilities of war, even thermonuclear war. If you add these on the upper left box, what would be the best course of action? All it seems to me is that this guy would actually risk for WWIII, total destruction of human kind and the planet in an attempt to do something good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Thermonuclear war from a mass migration of people uncomfortable with the weather? You're reaching a bit, aren't you?
The fact remains total annihilation at the hands of tensions because we acted when we didn't need to are all around less likely than those that would occur if we didn't act when we needed to.
More recycling.
Recycling can actually shoot more CO2 into the atmosphere than just using the product once, so that might not really be on the top five list of anti-CO2 initiatives.
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One point people seem to be ignoring is that water vapor is a far more significant greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
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I agree with that, I like the environment too, and I agree that we need to do out best to protect it. But trying to save the environment by screaming mass destruction and all is not the way to go. If that does backfire and if the people see they have been lead on, I really doubt they will care about anything natural then.
True...and the sensationalized mass destruction thing I think its more invented by the media for storytelling purposes and probably carried on by the scientists to get anyone to listen to them. I mean people have been talking about climate change for a long while but only since everyone started talking about "big bad things" did anyone pay any attention. Its got more truth to it than Bush's Iraq WMD's and it seems to be having a similar effect in at least making the subject a top one. In Canada environment and healthcare are at the top of the political/media agenda and the minority Conservative government has come up with not one but somewhere in the neighborhood of three different environmental initiatives to try and get people to vote for them in the next election. I've read varying things about how effective these are going to be but ultimately I'm just happy to see some kind of action taken.
I think some people have it in their heads that because we're "cutting" back on emissions it means somehow their fun is going to be ruined. I don't think that has to happen. I read allot about cars and some enthusiasts don't seem to get how an efficient hybrid engine is likely going to be the way to produce some rocking sports cars in the future. The all electric Tesla Roadster has a 0-60mph in the 4.0 second range and not a single emission coming from the tail pipe. Chevy has a concept car called the Volt which is actually pretty ingenious for GM and has a very small gasoline motor that generates electricity and then feeds that through a battery system, regenerative breaking like on a standard hybrid, and ultimately its driven by electric motors. They are saying that you'll be able to run potentially for weeks without a fill up of gas with the whole system working together during the average commute. Build enough cars like any of those (not to mention hydrogen which will probably be somewhere in the future) and you can cut emissions significantly (one of the larger contributors) so you don't have to give up your car, don't necessarily have to give up the performance, and you get some really cool high tech solutions to the problem. Brilliant.
Also...new energy efficient lightbulbs. They will be mandatory for standard home lighting in a few years. Costs a bit more per bulb but they last many times longer and use less than half the amount of power for the same or more output. If everyone goes around their house and puts these in where practical (I know you can't use them for everything just yet) then the cumulative effect is that we're not using nearly as much power to light our homes, saving on the electric bill, and ultimately don't need to push as many pollutants into the atmosphere to turn on our lights.
So on and so forth. I'm a favour of many small but significant changes that can be made with the right kind of funding...which were starting to see...that will have dramatic impacts on the overall scheme of things. These things need to happen with industry too. We've got two big steel makers in my area and one of them decided to up efficiency, installed scrubbers and all sorts of filtering technologies to their various mills, and ultimately have managed to cut their emissions (and continue to do so) and they are raking in the cash and doing quite well with all of the money saved over the long term. The other company didn't go that route...stuck to the cheap method and now they are in dire straits because they couldn't look long term and didn't want to go the green route. Not saying this would always be the case but there are many examples of how saving the environment is good for business and doesn't destroy a way of life either (you have some modifications to it sure but its not gone). But its better to do it now and keep improving things now instead of when it might be too late...if thats the case. And if its not the case then I see no huge loss...
What will happen is that some industries will die out and ultimately others will replace them. But there is change involved and people are, as we know, afraid of change. I see this as positive change.
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Finding ways to cut down CO2 from the internet is not too hard. But finding the ways that actually make sense is a lot damn harder.
- About energy efficient devices, what are they exactly? You mean energy efficient display cards, computers, electronics? No matter how much electronical industry trumpets the energy saving capabilities of computers, take a look at the transformer behind the thing and read the wattage it takes. Then do the same for the stuff ten - twenty years old. I make a dangerous assumption that you are likely to find out that the wattage number is actually increasing.
There is no bloody way to get the new shiny Pentium running with as low wattages as the trusty old 486. If there were, it would have been done due to the corporate interests involved. Yet I still find the same people who are worried about global warming talking about which new graphics card to buy, in these forums also. Also, the energy saving modes are simply put total bull****. It is never as efficient as shutting the damn thing down while you are not using it. One of the most efficient ways to cut down power consumption (directly related to CO2 emissions) is to shut that computer of yours down while not using it. Downloading something overnight classifies as "not using your computer".
I admit that the normal house equipment saving capabilities have gone better and better year by year. Washing machines and refrigerators seem to work with less power as before, that is a sign of progress. But, let's talk about the vacuum cleaners. What is the wattage number you have in your vacuum cleaner? Which number would you or your mother be likely to choose? Okay, this is a moot point as the time the cleaner is connected to electricity network is quite low so that the effect is insignificant. But keep an eye for the similar examples in the household equipment that are actually connected to the network all the time.
- Due to the price of the fuel, car pooling is naturally done when it is possible here. Do you mean you are not? But given the distances one has to travel, dropping the use of cars is not possible. I suppose most of the people have noticed that the cars done before the time of the additional security and safety features were as efficient as the best cars today. Take a standard Mazda 323 model 1985, IIRC it took something like 5.5 l / 100 km in conditions here (and the well-kept models still do). I don't drive a car to crash with it. Yet the safety features are actually required by EU and effect the buying decision heavily.
- List the renewable sources of energy.
Quote from Goober5000:
One point people seem to be ignoring is that water vapor is a far more significant greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Shhh, not so loud. If the normal people find this out most of them understand there is nothing that can be done about it.
Mika
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Then about the hybrid cars: will not work here. I'm yet to find an electrical system that can withstand temperatures ranging from -40 to 40 degrees of C, including the occasional rain and snowing. I'll again assume this to hold on the countries around the same latitude, meaning that the whole of Canada and Northern part of US, the whole of Scandinavia, half of Russia and northern parts of China cannot make the change. Getting an economic car is not an option if it only works three months of the year. Besides, the manufacturing of the economic car is not that environment friendly as people tend to think, given the complex material processing required. You are effectively transferring the CO2 emission from one place to another, or creating local environmental problems around.
Removing lightbulbs and replacing them with LEDs seems to be a good idea, dropping from 80 W to 20 W consumption has indeed an effect. One the other hand I recently saw an webpage that was advertising for cleaner illumination techniques. One look at the origin of those LED bulbs then shot down the whole argument of "clean". I understand that this is because it is not so cheap to manufacture them in US or Europe, which is partly because the outsourcing countries do not obey the environment pollution laws and partly because of the standard working hours are not in effect there. With investing ten times more on the LEDs you could have them produced in Western Countries where there is at least an attempt for environmental protection and CO2 emissions. Yet you still choose the cheaper alternative. Why?
Regarding the argument "they are not doing it", is an old argument, but I think you do not actually understand what it means. It is not a coincidence it comes back at to you everywhere. We are talking about 25 % of the total population on the Earth here! I find it mightily important that they do it also and at the same time. Let me put it this way: are you ready to give up your personal freedom in order to stop global warming? Note that at this point no-one is even sure if it can be stopped!
And yes, I'm sure we all go along nicely when the northern hemisphere must be abandoned. It is not like the influx of population has ever caused any conflicts anywhere. I actually know only one place that has been able to absorb and settle an amount of refugees that equals to 10 % of the total population number in that country. And that happened within one year. The prequisite was that the refugees were original people of that country who had to leave their homes behind when that part of the land had to be given up and that country was scarcely populated. I think explaining your average French farmer that he has to give up his lands due to a possible threat of Global Warming in order to preserve the refugee people from the Northern part might take more than one try.
So, we are talking about these kind of numbers here, and I'm sure there is plenty of room left in Europe so that we could fiddle in. Not to mention that the current superpowers would have no interest of keeping themselves floating till the last point, and simply taking and weaker obeying. Thanks to our kind human nature, that kind of stuff has never happened anywhere.
So in conclusion, I think resulting wars could happen perfectly as easily as this guy thinks Global Warming can be stopped.
Mika
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One point people seem to be ignoring is that water vapor is a far more significant greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Those people may have figured out (and correctly) that the amount of water in the atmosphere hasn't increased. Also even if it had increased, one would only need to wait a few days for it to precipitate (the more water, the faster it precipitates). Can you say the same about carbon dioxide?
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Can you say chain reaction?
Can you say we're ****ed? Becoause we are...I ain't making no investment plans for hte future...
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Can you say chain reaction?
Can you say we're ****ed? Becoause we are...I ain't making no investment plans for hte future...
Alarmist attitudes like that don't help anyone. In fact they tend to polarise people and stunt any constructive discussion, which makes it more difficult for actual progress to be made.
Regarding the argument "they are not doing it", is an old argument, but I think you do not actually understand what it means. It is not a coincidence it comes back at to you everywhere. We are talking about 25 % of the total population on the Earth here! I find it mightily important that they do it also and at the same time. Let me put it this way: are you ready to give up your personal freedom in order to stop global warming?
Giving up my personal freedom?! What on Earth you talking about? Regardless, I would hope that most people would indeed sacrifice a small part of their "personal freedoms" to preserve the planet for future generations. Remember, the planet ain't ours, it's just own loan from our grandchildren.
Also, it's worth noting that - if I remember correctly - North America remains the highest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet, and will remain so for quite some time until Asia surpasses them. I still fail to see the logic that nations such as the US should, in good conscience, delay action on cleaning up their act just because China will inevitably pollute more than them. Could you explain to me the logic in that? Because i'm still not getting it.
Note that at this point no-one is even sure if it can be stopped!
So we must therefore do nothing? Yep, why try when there's a possibility we've already lost!
And yes, I'm sure we all go along nicely when the northern hemisphere must be abandoned. It is not like the influx of population has ever caused any conflicts anywhere. I actually know only one place that has been able to absorb and settle an amount of refugees that equals to 10 % of the total population number in that country. And that happened within one year. The prequisite was that the refugees were original people of that country who had to leave their homes behind when that part of the land had to be given up and that country was scarcely populated. I think explaining your average French farmer that he has to give up his lands due to a possible threat of Global Warming in order to preserve the refugee people from the Northern part might take more than one try.
Again, what refugees are you talking about? I'm not entirely sure I get where you're coming from. Whatever you're talking about, the fact that even a small rise in sea-level will displace anywhere from tens of thousands to tens of millions of people probably outweighs the number of refugees cast out by... whatever you're referring to. What are we talking about here?
So, we are talking about these kind of numbers here, and I'm sure there is plenty of room left in Europe so that we could fiddle in. Not to mention that the current superpowers would have no interest of keeping themselves floating till the last point, and simply taking and weaker obeying. Thanks to our kind human nature, that kind of stuff has never happened anywhere.
Come again? Anyway, this whole talk of displacement does give me an idea. Wouldn't a rising sea-level recreate long-dried inland oceans around the world? I mean, it's been a while since i've taken a good look at Australian paleogeography, but I seem to remember there being a significant ocean stretching across South Australia and Victoria. Now, would the recreation of this ocean because of rising sea-levels - again, correct me if i'm wrong on this - create vast swaths of newly arable land from what was once desert?
Think I might go read up on this.
So in conclusion, I think resulting wars could happen perfectly as easily as this guy thinks Global Warming can be stopped.
Still not clear on what would cause these wars, but you're right; wars would indeed occur. Of course, wars will occur whatever the hell we do, so we should take that as a given and move onto the other dangers.
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Can you say chain reaction?
Can you say we're ****ed? Becoause we are...I ain't making no investment plans for hte future...
Alarmist attitudes like that don't help anyone. In fact they tend to polarise people and stunt any constructive discussion, which makes it more difficult for actual progress to be made.
I'd rather call myself a catious realist. Yes, there are things that can be done to minimize the damage, but it can't be avided completely ...not anymore.
CO2 and CH4 (along with steam) heat up our atmosphere, which results in more evaporation.
More avoparation = even more greenhouse gases and even higher temperatures. The melting of large ice surfaces that act like large mirris, deflecting most of Suns radiation hets up things even more..and more ice melts..and more vapor in the atmosphere is released...
Doesn't sound nice, does it? It gets worse..We'll start feeling the effects of all the gases that heat up Earth in a decade or so....Reaction in this case it a bit sluggish when following action, which is even worse for us as it takes us longer to react...and once we do it's allready a bit late.
The best part? If we STOP any and ALL pollution ATM and somehow try to reverse the process by pumpin out O2 and destroying CO2, it will take a 100 years to start feeling the effects of that action...and in the meantime things will continue to get worse and heat up.
You telling me I should happily plan my far future like nothing is happening?
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You telling me I should happily plan my far future like nothing is happening?
Yes. Just as I am, you are merely one person. Do what you must to contribute to what you believe to be the solution: Take part in initiatives, write letters, or merely spread around the video posted at the beginning of this very thread. These are all constructive ways for you to act, and hence I encourage you to do so.
However, it is not constructive to merely lament over a forlorn future of death and misery. Let me put it this way: Dude, you're a real downer. We've finally got a good-sounding debate going here and you're dragging us all down. Take a pill and relax, man!
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Who sez I'm not doing anything or not planing to do anything?
The thing is..I'm smart enough not to invest on costal realestate just yet :D
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Then about the hybrid cars: will not work here. I'm yet to find an electrical system that can withstand temperatures ranging from -40 to 40 degrees of C, including the occasional rain and snowing. I'll again assume this to hold on the countries around the same latitude, meaning that the whole of Canada and Northern part of US, the whole of Scandinavia, half of Russia and northern parts of China cannot make the change. Getting an economic car is not an option if it only works three months of the year. Besides, the manufacturing of the economic car is not that environment friendly as people tend to think, given the complex material processing required. You are effectively transferring the CO2 emission from one place to another, or creating local environmental problems around.
Hybrid cars seem to work just fine here in Canada despite the ridiculous variations in temperature and humidity that we see back and forth although in my area is more from -25 to +35. What the Toyota Prius doesn't seem to do well on is the slippery back roads...I've heard some stories about some problems with that. Apparently there's a bulletin out on how to fix them with the Toyota dealerships. Other hybrids seem to be working out ok too...Civic Hybrid seems fine, I've seen quite a few of the new Camry Hybrids...and the Aura Green Line is due here shortly. Maybe you mean hydrogen? That IS a problem for the northern latitudes.
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Some things regarding water vapour and it's physical properties with the explanations why those properties exist, a must read for anyone who wants to save environment:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/16/5/7/3
Personally I found the article quite nice general view article, in which it is mentioned there is actually not much data about the water vapour content in the atmosphere during the years. So all this leads us back to the question we don't know what is going on.
The current temperature could simply be a periodic increase which happens naturally when Earth orbits the sun. This place was once covered with ice, and the sand formations in my country are created by the melting and moving ice. Then, we also have traces of much more hotter climate that has once existed here.
Another study that questions the relationship between Global Warming and increasing CO2 levels [Science]:
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf
It is found that the CO2 concentration is actually lagging 800 years behind the Antarctic glacier temperature. This would suggest that the warming is the reason for more CO2 released in the past (from the sea!), not the other way around. This would be related to the sunspot activity of the sun and the orbital tilting of the Earth, as more Sun energy reaches Earth's surface in places where there is more or less water.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/abs/nature04679.html [Nature, something about simulations]
Why CO2 control is a choice of your personal freedoms? Because if you insist US to curb down the CO2 emissions too quickly, they will rapidly bleed of any price advantage over outsourcing countries. Which is because people will buy the cheaper alternative. If US economy goes finally down, all what you consider your personal "freedoms" and "rights" are pretty much over and wont come back. Do you want your grandchildren to live in a future where they are ruled by despotism?
Regardless, there is something that could be done. If actions are taken, US might be able to lower the emissions close to the level of EU (15.3%). Would this save us then? And when you look at the CO2 output statistics, US has had a very controlled output of CO2 for a long time. While China and India managed to grow the output by 50% during last twenty years and combined they rival the US output. And are not likely to slow down pushing out CO2.
There are some necessary CO2 emissions related to the production of energy and transportation in Northern hemisphere. As these are major factors on the northern areas and requiring these to be dropped simply means to abandon the country and seek living from the southern areas. This inevitably leads to an forced influx of people, all because of the possible threat of a Global Warming, of which we can't even be sure if these actions would have any effect. No sane people will decide to move towards southern areas on these grounds. You would have to force them. And then no sane land owner would accept the refugees of possible Global Warming avoidance action, of which we cannot even be sure if it would work. You would have to force them also.
So are there more feasible ideas to decrease CO2 emissions?
The problem with the new land created by the incoming sea is that the water is salty and cannot be used to cultivate the land without using loads of energy to remove the salt. Also, rising sea level will not happen in a fortnight.
Mika
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The only problem I can see with the Prius is that it has a piss-poor 1.5L petrol engine in it, so the minute you leave the city it's like there was no point in buying the damned thing because your fuel consumptions sky rockets.
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Regardless, there is something that could be done. If actions are taken, US might be able to lower the emissions close to the level of EU (15.3%). Would this save us then? And when you look at the CO2 output statistics, US has had a very controlled output of CO2 for a long time. While China and India managed to grow the output by 50% during last twenty years and combined they rival the US output. And are not likely to slow down pushing out CO2.
Not to be a pain in the ass, but saying that over a third of the population on the planet rivals the US output is not exactly something to be proud of.
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The only problem I can see with the Prius is that it has a piss-poor 1.5L petrol engine in it, so the minute you leave the city it's like there was no point in buying the damned thing because your fuel consumptions sky rockets.
Prius gets 4.9 city and 5.2 highway. I don't see the skyrocketing fuel consumption? The electrical engine augments the gasoline engine as well. Its not engineered to be a hot performing vehicle but I know of a few people that own them and they feel pretty good about the car on the highway. Its the back roads with the snow that they worry about...and thats about it.
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report directly links the temperature rise with increase CO2 concetration... so that crap about solar cycles or some system-wide heat wave is rubbish (the solar cycle has been on the downside sine 1950 and the temperature rise has only been spotted on 4 planets in Sol...not to mention we know very little about those planets climate changes and cycles, so it's a moot point)
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I've heard of this before; We used to be a lot warmer than we are now... so what's the big deal?
Washington, Nov. 12.
Two Smithsonian scientists, Charles Schuchert and David White, have just returned from the wilds of west Greenland, bringing back valuable collections. In a region of everlasting ice and snow they have been exploring luxuriant tropical forests. Far to the north of the Arctic circle they have been studying a flora consisting of palms, tree ferns, and other plants belonging properly to the neighborhood of the equator. These forests, however, and the trees and varied forms of plant life which compose them are exceedingly ancient. In fact, they disappeared from the face of the earth several millions of years ago, and only their fossil remains are found buried in the strata of the rocks. It was these remains that Messrs, Schuchert and White went to investigate. They wanted to get specimens for the National Museum, and other objects of a geological nature were in view.
Greenland was once upon a time a tropical country. That is proved absolutely by the remains of an extensive tropical flora which are found there. Where now a sheet of solid ice over a mile thick covers mountain and valley, and mighty frozen rivers called glaciers make their way to the sea and hatch icebergs, there was in earlier days a verdure-clad wilderness of luxuriant vegetation. Together with the palms and tree ferns, there were trees related to the giant sequoias of our own west coast; also representatives of the "gingko," the sacred tree of Japan and of the Eucalyptus family, which today is restricted to Australia. Climbing vines festooned the trunks of these monarchs of an ancient forest with draperies of foliage, while close to the ground grew those curious dwarf trees called "cycads," somewhat resembling palms in miniature, in the midst of a tangled undergrowth of ferns and other flowerless plants that carpted the densely wooded areas.
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The answer is in the sentence 'Greenland was once upon a time a tropical country' according to current plate tectonic theory, Greenland is moving north, having once actually been in the tropics.
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Indeed, by the same logic I could scream that much of Australia was covered in jungles at one point, but has now been turned to desert. Thus, global warming is happening!
See how silly that sounds?
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Well, in that case, obviously global climate change isn't caused by us. :p
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I'll try to be brief this time:
Hybrid cars are problematic here for three reasons: as said earlier, I'm yet to find an electrical system that will surely work in -30 degrees of Celsius. I would think that the army has the most reliable and tested stuff and even there I encountered problems with the cold. So I find it quite hard to believe there would be a working electrical system in continous -30 degrees (Celsius) of cold that lasts a month. Including the humidity caused by the autumn. The second reason is that there might easily get something like 10 cm of snow on the road. With a petrol engine this is not a problem, but I'm not so sure about electrical / petrol combination. How much torque does the thing output and at what RPMs? Third, what is the working radius (pardon me the term but couldn't figure a better one) of the car? The distance between villages might get quite long in Northern Scandinavia (100 km). Lastly, doesn't anyone else find it at least curious that there were cars in 1985 whose fuel consumption rivalled current "economy" -class cars?
The Greenland has been named around 800 A.D. by the Vikings. I would suspect they had a reason for that. So it has been warmer much more recently, no need to go digging some 20 million years old things. Yesterday I also read that the wood line in Siberia was once at the shore of the Arctic Ocean. Nowadays it has receeded 100 km.
And yes, it indeed seems that the CO2 has lagged the glacier temperature by 800 years before the industrial age - this means it actually has been solar and orbital changes that have caused the climate changes in the past. The article cannot be explained away simply by referring to the UN publication because they don't match in time. As curious as it is, this time the UN publication is claiming that within 90% probability it is the CO2 that is causing the warming this time. Well, the roles might have been reversed, although I'm interested to know why.
However, the reported measurement results of CO2 concentration on the Northern hemisphere would imply that it is indeed Western Countries that have caused it this time. I'm somewhat disappointed I couldn't find a plot that would show the natural output of CO2 in the same graph with the human output for a reference. But that might not be relevant, as the climate is a chaotic system where everything affects everything. Yet life on Earth has survived multiple collisions with asteroids. The effect of those impacts surely exceed those that the human has ever caused. Including the released dust and CO2.
In the UN publication it is also clearly mentioned that both the solar activity and water vapour content have actually increased during this time, but they state that the increase in the solar irradiance on sea level is unlikely to be the cause of the warming. However, indirect forcing effects are actually unknown, and there seem to be a lot of recent publications ranging from 2003-2007 who are actually claiming that the indirect forcing effects are working through UV and have a significant effect which must be taken account. Also in the beginning of the report, I noted that most of the parts that describe the level of scientific understanding is quite low (which is strange considering the 90 % confidence on current theory).
The problem as I understand it, is not that the Earth would not have been warmer before. It has and there has not been that big problems with rising sea levels - or maybe there has been, but the change is comparatively slow so that there has been time to adjust. The problem is that they are predicting that the global temperature would continue to rise. The link I provided last claims that with high probability there would maximally be a 6.2 K rise in the global temperature. Too bad I can only read the abstract, so don't take that as an official truth.
Regarding the combined China and India CO2 output and US CO2 output, here comes the question:
Given the statistically proven values of the current emission levels and the current growth rate of those emissions, where exactly should you be directing your efforts to curb those emissions down to achieve the maximal effect? And how could you do it?
Mika
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What I'd like to know is why civilisations across the world have the Great Flood story somewhere in their history, be it in their legends, myths or whatever. I see correlations with the scientists of today and Noah, where the people wish to stick their head in the sand and disbelieve!
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"There's no way we can have that big of a impact on Earth"...I find that argument funny...
It might have been true 100, 200 years ago...but not anymore. Technology does it's thing and we can now influence our own planet more than ever. And that has to have consequences.
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"There's no way we can have that big of a impact on Earth"
Obviously these people have never heard of the term nuclear winter. Yes the cause is different but lets face it, if humans can cause a major climactic change in 30 minutes of nuclear war then it's surely not as big of a stretch to imagine that we can affect it with hundreds of years of more gradual change.
I'd also love to hear their explanations of what the **** global dimming was if not a global climate change caused by humans?
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*puts a 50p in the leccy' meter*
Global dimming solved.....
Global dimming,? i assume thats a smog based global thing?
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Yep. Particulate matter altering weather patterns and making the world somewhat colder. Ironically it has the effect of slowing down global warming but we've actually taken steps to reduce it cause it causes acid rain.
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What ever happened to 'better safe than sorry'?
Carpe Diem happened to it. ;)
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What I'd like to know is why civilisations across the world have the Great Flood story somewhere in their history, be it in their legends, myths or whatever. I see correlations with the scientists of today and Noah, where the people wish to stick their head in the sand and disbelieve!
Actually, that's not really the case, most scientists will agree to a great deal of evidence to a 'great flood' in history at some point, however, that, by itself does not imply the existence of Noah. Now, there IS some evidence of the possible existence of Arks, or, at least of what appear to be huge shipwrecks where there is no reason for a shipwreck to be there. The problem is, although photographs have been taken of what appears to be 'ribbing' from a ship in the Pack Ice at the top of a mountain somewhere, the government involved refuses to let anyone go take a look, I'm not too certain on the fine details though.
It's not that Scientists stick their head in the sand, it's that, should someone go to this site, and discover that it IS in fact an Ark, then that will mean they will review their opinion, because the data available has changed, though I'll still add that the chances are it wouldn't provide any more weight to the Noah story than to any of the other Ark stories that accompany these Flood Legends :)
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I never mentioned anything about the existence of Noah, just that stories like his, regarding a great global flood are found in cultures all over the world. And as you said there is a great deal of evidence of there being a great flood in history at some point. If it has happened before, it could happen again, only this time there is also evidence that we as a species are adding to those effects and bringing it upon ourselves. Yet as a species we are also sticking our heads in the sands and hoping that it will go away!
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The problem is, although photographs have been taken of what appears to be 'ribbing' from a ship in the Pack Ice at the top of a mountain somewhere, the government involved refuses to let anyone go take a look, I'm not too certain on the fine details though.
Eh? Link?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searches_for_Noah%27s_Ark
When even members of the Bible Archeology Search and Exploration Institute say it isn't a boat then it probably isn't a boat.
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The point of asteroids was that the more sudden and greater the effect, the larger are the chances that it will take a lot of us with it. During time there has been global warming, 3 to 5 generations have passed by, depending on the way you count it.
Talking about global dimming, do you mean that global dimming which was forecasted to destroy the whole of the mankind in hundred years? That global dimming on which environmentalists added a lot of pressure to hurry up the approvals of the new environmental laws? That global dimming on whose wake the scientists found a new threat, global warming? And those climate models that surely showed that the global dimming would continue for a long time, no-one ever noticing this little side effect of CO2, which actually should have been noted back then? Yes, obviously money well spent. Or put it more like:
[Obi-Wan voice]
Good job!
[/Obi-Wan voice]
Makes me wonder what other things have been missed in climate modelling.
A Russian scientist wrote in 1950s that should CO2 be a problem, it could be contained quite with a small amount of sulphur distributed in the athmosphere. But with method one should be quite careful though. This combined with the agreements like Kyoto protocol might be the way out of it.
Global warming does not cause a sudden sea level rise. That will happen gradually. The tales of sudden water rise are related to some other phenomena.
Mika
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Nope. I mean the real one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming).
Not the strawman you were on about.
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It was actually the one I was talking about.
I really mean it when I say the role of CO2 should have been noticed back then. The climate is something you don't mess around with due to the sheer scale of changes what it causes. That's why I said do it right the first time, since there is no room for error.
Norwegian Physicist (God forbid I forgot his name) could simulate the Northern lights in the beginning of 1900s with a model of Earth. Proto-life molecules have been actually generated in the experiments with early Earth like climate. I would think that it should be possible to conduct real laboratory experiments while controlling the climate and solar irradiance and actually see what happens with each parameter. I'm saying it can be done.
Mika
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There's a bit of a difference between the Miller-Urey experiment and trying to model the entire earth in a laboratory though.
Besides, are you telling me that a laboratory experiment would convince you? Or would you simply claim that it wasn't a good enough model if it didn't reach the conclusion you wanted?
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Why do I think the model can be simplified quite a lot to observe the effects of CO2 and Sulphur? It could be just me, though.
That model is the best where we could test the simulation results before forcing them to legislation. Like this little global dimming side effect. I would be far more convinced with the experiment in that workbench than simply putting the simulation results into action. It would be like constructing an airplane while never constructing a model of it to test it in a wind tunnel and then sending the perfect design for manufacturing.
What do you mean by reaching the conclusion I want?
Mika
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Global Warming emo ppl tend to get quite snippy...
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And just what did that add to the discussion jr2?
What do you mean by reaching the conclusion I want?
Are you seriously trying to claim you're coming at this from an unbiased point of view?
As for the whole model idea, again there is a huge difference between real life modelling of a simple system like that in the Miller-Urey experiment or a wind tunnel and one that is supposed to simulate the weather systems of an entire planet.
The model is far too simple to give any kind of useful data. This kind of thing can only be modelled on computer. A laboratory experiment would be virtually useless.
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Well, Mika seems to be pretty cool & level headed. I hate it when ppl start stuff... it would be soooo much nicer if we could just keep ourselves emotionally detached from things. Because it's hard to think straight when you're responding to a percieved jab. (I could be misreading this, heck, probably am... :( Whatever.)
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I have a bias of course. But it's mine, not global warming's or global dimming's, though. You cannot really create new theories without putting bias to your own preferred side. A typical measurement is somewhat different. It is a lot easier to say "I have no bias so let's just observe" when you already know the answer that the apple will fall. Try doing that when creating something totally new and indeed you will find out that you have a bias. But enough sidetracking.
I actually need to ask how did you come to conclusion it could only be modelled with a computer? What things do you think would be crucial to include in the laboratory setup?
By analogue, would you accept that a new particle exists just because of a computer simulation? Would you accept a system that uses this particle and someone selling it with a hefty price-tag?
Mika
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You mean like the higgs boson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson)?
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Couldn't have put it better myself Ghostavo.
When it comes to highly complex systems you rapidly reach the end of what laboratory experiments can tell you. I was going to point out that following your logic we should throw out much of what we know about black holes on the grounds that no one has made a singularity in a lab.
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The climate not be modeled in lab or on a computer because of chaos theory or even the butterfly effect.
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Regarding Higgs boson, I only believe its existence when they get indisputable evidence with the Large Hadron Collider. That means repeatable, actual measurements which display behavior that can only be explained with the attributes that Higgs boson has. And even then this must happen with as capable colliders around the world. Until then it is a possibility and curiosity. Though I fail to see the practical importance of this Higgs boson. From what I know, it either only confirms or removes the concept of Higgs field, trashing or confirming years of theoretical research. I could actually venture so far and say that the science world is biased to find one, since otherwise they have been wasting tons of taxpayers' money.
I find it that nowadays Science has a worrifying trend to give a lot of weight for computer simulations and taking weight from measurements and observations. But I suppose that is because the measuring and observation equipment is expensive. Another thing I find annoying is the concentration on the extreme ends of the scales - well no wonder it is damn expensive! Either it has to be extremely small or massively big, but the normal world, no, that's boring and solved already.
Well, what do we know about Black Holes? I thought that the definition of Black Hole meant that no information can return after passing the event horizon. But it is four years since I read General Relativity so I might be little rusty about this. I seem to recall that the poor thing that passes it is rapidly going to hit the center, but good luck measuring that. I never thought about this before, but anything beyond Event Horizon is pure speculation from pure Physics point of view as this cannot be verified, unless we all decide to jump to event horizon and even then that knowledge would be rather short-lived. Thanks, I shall utilize this insight to annoy some friends from theoretical physics department to no end. So, no, I think I didn't get your analogy. How come we can expect the computer simulations to be any more accurate?
Mika
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So if you were somehow "in control" of how science operated, you'd cut the Standard Model and the Grand Unification Theory off of it (amongst many others)?
The basis of today's understanding of how particles behave?
Excuse me if I seem worried.
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I fail to see the importance of Higgs boson when compared with the threat of Global Warming. So yes, I would probably cut funding from particle research to find out more of climate. Honestly, which one do you think is more urgent?
Besides, since when the definition of experimental natural science has been dropped from Physics?
And given that we don't have a clue of if Higgs boson exists yet, the Standard model is the best estimate there is, meaning: not confirmed. All beyond that is speculation. Yet I read about predictions to the beginning of the universe based on this - but even more amazing is that this kind of research actually gets funds. Take a look at the history of Kirchoff's Scalar Diffraction Theory at this point.
Mika
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That's not what I meant. The Higgs boson in your opinion until verified would be just a "possibility and a curiosity", so would this mean you'd pause all research until you could verify it's existance?
To give an example, if this was the case, we'd still be trying to figure out general relativity because only recently (well, compared to when it was proposed) it was "proved".
Regarding funding, that is up to who actually gives the funds, and unless it's a government, we don't actually have a say in it. Also bear in mind we can't pick up a bunch of physicists and say "From today on, you'll become climatologists!".
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More to the point Mika, just because you personally cannot see the value of a particular line of research does not in any way mean that it has nothing valuable to contribute. I for one would love to see the Higgs Boson verified because if we can figure out what causes matter to have mass, it may be possible to control it.
Think about it. All those wild and cliche science-fiction ideas (inertial dampening, artificial gravity, frameshift drives) might actually become possible. To this date, general relativity doesn't allow for mass or gravitational manipulation without machines of stupendous size, with matter as dense as a degenerate white dwarf clocking through its mechanisms at close to the speed of light. I have doubts such an engineering marvel would even be possible. On the other hand, if there is an elementary particle responsible for mass, hell, maybe it is something that can be manipulated on a much more reasonable scale. Maybe not. We don't know yet.
If we cut every bit of research that didn't have an immediately obvious benefit, we would have never made it past the industrial revolution, if that.
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Besides, since when the definition of experimental natural science has been dropped from Physics?
It hasn't. But the experiment has to mean something. Modelling the atmosphere in a lab would mean that you simplified the model so much that you could do little with it. How do you make a physical model which accounts for all the variables that result in more or less CO2 in the atmosphere?
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You've got to admit that computer modeling has to be taken with a rather large grain of salt, especially when the result cannot be experimentally verified. I don't mean you shouldn't consider computer models at all, but even for relatively simple systems, accurate models can be kind of black magic-esque. For example...
The background:
My wife (and to a much lesser degree, myself) were both involved with computational fracture mechanics a few years back when we were still in grad school. The short explanation is that when you have a piece of material (we're engineers, so usually that material is low-carbon steel), it is always going to have imperfections both on the surface and inside. We treat it like a solid continuum of material, but that isn't really the case at all, it is just a (usually) decent 1st order approximation. When defects get too large or too numerous, your fracture toughness goes to pot. The material becomes very brittle and will break at loads far less than the yield and tensile material strengths would lead you to believe.
The problem:
We were trying to accurately model the propagation of an individual crack. As the crack grows, the amount of cross-sectional area left to take on load decreases. However, you are also work-hardening the material at the crack tip, so the stress required to propagate the crack increases slightly. It is kind of a contest between work hardening and area reduction to see whether the crack will keep growing or not under a given load. What we found, though, is that even with an extremely refined finite-element mesh, we'd get a swing of 30 to 40% on our results depending on the way we structured the mesh near the crack tip. No change in the number of elements or nodes, or really any change in the density of nodes near the crack tip, just changing where we put them, and we still got gross swings in our results.
My point is that if you are dealing with anything resembling a singularity in your model or a metastable balance point (think ball on top of a hill) your model gets so finicky that it is really hard to get consistent results, let alone accurate ones.
That said, when you do start getting consistent results from multiple independent models (like say, climate modeling), that's a pretty good indication that the trend is correct even if the exact answers are not.
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Good afternoon, I just recovered from one helluva good mid-summer party.
Ghostavo, yes I would probably shoot down quite a lot of particle research based on the assumption Higgs boson exists. I would probably accept the next level of research after Higgs boson, but everything building on the results of that would probably be shot down. They are curiosities at best. And regarding the practical applications of Higgs bosons, I don't buy it. If the energy needed to produce one amounts to the output of a nuclear plant (or more!), how much is needed to make something of the real world size to levitate or to lose inertia? If it is a 500 MW nuclear plant, and we are willing to make a 12 g of carbon to levitate, what is the probability that we would need at least 6.022e+23 similar powerplants to make it happen?
I actually had to stumble across the CERN website to find out if newly found particles have found any applications. With industrial and pharmaceutical applications, they mostly cite techniques 50-100 years old, invented well before the results of modern particle research. If this is the basic research for the next couple of generations, I still think there will be no new applications for results from particle research. Why? Due to the energy and control required to produce them! If I happen to be wrong at here, you are then welcomed to shout: "I hate to say you this, but YEAH, IN YOUR FACE, MOTHER****ER!". The time will show.
I fully understand that the things I'm saying here are related to the meaning of science. But here I ask you what is your role as a scientist: is it to uncover the secrets of nature, or is it to serve your community? With research activities like this I find the question quite relevant. I know that the science world is worried about the commercialization of Science, but honestly, has it ever been truly independent? Can it even hope to be? The society will simply view you as leeches if you don't produce something meaningful.
Besides, should I see that the current weighting of research funds emphasizes the fact that even the scientific community views the particle research far more important than Climate Change?
Perihelion, the work you described sounds awfully familiar. Who constructed the prototype measurement system?
And regarding climate, with the change of particle concentration from 283 ppm's to 380 ppm of CO2, I would call this a metastable situation, if that difference is able to turn the Earth in to a disaster. But about the simulations, has there been consideration on the effect that plants grow faster when there is more C02 available? At 1000 ppms the growth-rate would be 50% faster. And what happens to the microbes that output CO2, if there is more CO2 in the ocean water? What happens to microbes that use CO2 and output oxygen?
I push for a simple laboratory setup since it should be pretty easy to predict with the computer model. If you cannot simulate the happenings in it using the same model (does not need to be related to the current situation on Earth), the chances are that on global scale it is also wrong. For this I cannot give a reference, true, but I will simply point out to Murphy's laws.
Considering the setup, I see four difficulties:
1) Isolation. No thermal background radiation can reach the system. Thus the chamber walls, ceiling and floor must be cryogenically cooled. No thermal conduction can be allowed either, so I would suppose there is also a vacuum in the chamber while keeping the support for the setup at minimum. This would point out that smaller model would be more feasible.
2) Atmosphere composition. What means do we have to make the atmossphere reflect the real life situation? My original thought was plastic sheets between separate atmossphere zones. But since the plastic also has some absorption belts, it might prove more difficult. It could be possible to compose plastic materials that match with the absorption spectrum of the specific zone in the atmossphere.
3) Irradiance changes. If there is need to have a polar region in the model, how easily that could be implemented? Both 2) & 3) are easier to implement, if the model is larger. The thermal managed might prove difficult if original Earth crust materials (like granite) are used as a basis for the model.
4) Water level. Water covers roughly 75% of Earth's surface. The problem is to contain water in the model somehow without disturbing the natural cycles. It would be easier with a model whose curvature would be small, making it a local model. However, the effect of increased CO2 output should be noticeable, if the system has reached equilibrium.
And the flora and fauna? Put algae in the water and bacteria/mushroom on the continents to simulate the effect of plants. Here I rest on the results of earlier work regarding young Earth climate. Also one question would be the Coriolis force. This could be done by rotating the model.
Then making the experiment and comparing the results with computer model would be far more convincing.
Mika