[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Kazan

stop the attacks on my intelligence simply because i am pointing out the lack of hard evidence, and the overreaction of certain people

Can I just ask - do you regard someone saying you made a (honest) mistake as an 'attack' on your intelligence?

[karajorma]

I'm not attacking your intelligence. I was attacking your knowledge There is a huge difference.

And just the same as I would tell a creationist to read The Selfish Gene and come back to me when he actually understood what he was talking about I'm telling you to read up on the subject (the link I gave earlier to the IPCC study is a good place to start) before you start attacking the intelligence of the scientists involved in studying climate change by claiming that they are over reacting.

Sure their are idiots who are getting caught up in hysteria about the subject. There is no cause so right that you won't find an idiot following it.

But that doesn't mean that the science is flawed or incomplete.

Stop listening to the words of Greenpeace when you claim the science isn't there and start actually reading what the scientist themselves have to say.

Seriously Kazan. What would you do about global warming?

[Ace]

Originally posted by Rictor


OK, so what we do is...first we build a machine, based on the crackpot theories os some shut-in scientist. We'll pay him like 15 billion dollars, cause hey - its the Earth. Alright, next, we need to recruit a pimple-faced teenager, but he's like the best hacker ever. We need to put him in a cave somewhere, cause he's allergic to sunlight, and we need to feed his ass some pop-tarts. But again, its all worth it, cause that dude can like totally HAXXORS THE PLANET.

So, whats next? Oh right, right, the crew. So, we need a beautiful yet intelligent woman onboard - gender equality and all that, besides, the mission to save the Earth can't be a sausage-fest. Oh, and we need some sort of "brave leader" type guy in there, but luckily they're a dime a dozen. And the round it all off, we can throw in some minorities, for comic relief you understand. A Russian would be good, they talk funny. Well, we'll think of something.

So, in order to save the Earth, what we do is - we have to drill to the centre of the Earth. Past the dinosaur bones and rock-hard granite and Morlocks. And then, we drop a few nukes in there, at the centre of the Earth, and that will just fix everything up. Cause nukes are good you see, they're like tape, you can fix anything with them. The nuclear blast will cause the molten centre of the Earth to spin faster...or was the slower, and then the magnetic interference patterns in the neutrino spectrum will produce exactly the effect we're after. Anyway, everything goes smoothly, despite the odds being spectacularly stacked against the mission, except someone, maybe the Russian or the crazy scientist, they get stuck at the centre of the Earth, and in order to save everyone else, they make a noble sacrifice to die, so that the ship can outrun the nuclear blast.

Upon returning to the surface, everyone is a hero and they all become hundredaires - no, thousandaires - and the Earth lives happily ever after. And we can all get back to our rampant, unchecked production and consumption, our air conditioners and SUVs, safe in the knowledge that the Earth is finally safe fromthe tyranny of nature.

Rictor, the Morlocks happen during a timeloop sequence when they discover what happens if their mission fails.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Rictor


OK, so what we do is...first we build a machine, based on the crackpot theories os some shut-in scientist. We'll pay him like 15 billion dollars, cause hey - its the Earth. Alright, next, we need to recruit a pimple-faced teenager, but he's like the best hacker ever. We need to put him in a cave somewhere, cause he's allergic to sunlight, and we need to feed his ass some pop-tarts. But again, its all worth it, cause that dude can like totally HAXXORS THE PLANET.

So, whats next? Oh right, right, the crew. So, we need a beautiful yet intelligent woman onboard - gender equality and all that, besides, the mission to save the Earth can't be a sausage-fest. Oh, and we need some sort of "brave leader" type guy in there, but luckily they're a dime a dozen. And the round it all off, we can throw in some minorities, for comic relief you understand. A Russian would be good, they talk funny. Well, we'll think of something.

So, in order to save the Earth, what we do is - we have to drill to the centre of the Earth. Past the dinosaur bones and rock-hard granite and Morlocks. And then, we drop a few nukes in there, at the centre of the Earth, and that will just fix everything up. Cause nukes are good you see, they're like tape, you can fix anything with them. The nuclear blast will cause the molten centre of the Earth to spin faster...or was the slower, and then the magnetic interference patterns in the neutrino spectrum will produce exactly the effect we're after. Anyway, everything goes smoothly, despite the odds being spectacularly stacked against the mission, except someone, maybe the Russian or the crazy scientist, they get stuck at the centre of the Earth, and in order to save everyone else, they make a noble sacrifice to die, so that the ship can outrun the nuclear blast.

Upon returning to the surface, everyone is a hero and they all become hundredaires - no, thousandaires - and the Earth lives happily ever after. And we can all get back to our rampant, unchecked production and consumption, our air conditioners and SUVs, safe in the knowledge that the Earth is finally safe fromthe tyranny of nature.

Or you could just plant a few more trees and do a little more research into fusion and electric cars.

But hey. Don't let me stop your fun

[Kazan]

Originally posted by karajorma

65 Million years ago you'd probably have been the one telling the other dinosaurs that they had nothing to worry about from that bright new star in the sky.

this is attacking my intelligence

[Kazan]

eliminate usage of fossil fuels in the US by 2010

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kazan
eliminate usage of fossil fuels in the US by 2010

How? By dropping the H-bomb?

Seriously though that's an almost unobtainable goal and far beyond the reccomendations of the scientists you claim are chicken-littling.  But fine at least you finally seem to be taking the threat seriously.

Originally posted by Kazan
this is attacking my intelligence

If you take that as an attack no wonder you're so angry all the time.

[Liberator]

Originally posted by Kazan
eliminate usage of fossil fuels in the US by 2010

In favor of what praytell?  

Electric?  Fossil Fuels provide something on the order of 80% of the World's elctricity.

The conundrum is to find something that can provide a permanent, non-polluting/less polluting that FF energy source that is renewable and cheap to produce.  Nuclear is the only option with the potential to generate enough juice to replace FF as the primary enegy source for the Western World which also is more and more including of the Eastern World as well.

[Bobboau]

I'd say hydrogen acting as an intermediary between (primaraly) nuclear run by the government and the end consumer would be the best case. at least with nuclear power all the nasty waste gets cramed into one tight easy to burry package, unlike ff were the waste is losely dispersed into the air.

[Rictor]

Wind and solar power are alternatives. Solar power can produce between 50% and 100% of a household's energy supplies, depending on how well they conserve. If it were a lower figure, something like 20 or 30%, it would still be possible to cut that much off the household energy consupmtion of an entire nation, which adds up to of energy.

Wind power is also good, they're implementing that quite heavily in Europe AFAIK. In America, and especially in Canada, there are huge, uninhabited spaces, which are perfect for wind mills (whatever you call them).

All this, put together, could concievably cut 50% or more off America's household energy usage, if the initiative was there, which I think you will agree, is a huge amount.

[Ace]

I think a big problem is just people consume resources in stupid ways.

Take for instance a lot of people's houses when I head over. Several TVs on when no one is watching them. Lights on in every room when it's a sunny day and you're not getting any extra lighting.

It's one thing if this was one or two people, but when just about every household you visit throughout the country is like this...

I'm not talking about "work in the dark, it'll save trees" I'm talking about simple, common sense things like turning off your damn TV when you're not watching it.

Anyway, if people were smarter with power consumption, solar and wind would be viable electricity choices.

Hydrogen fuel cars are also a good idea, that is if the cracking stations are using solar or wind.

Of course, the ideal would be to convert the solar system into a dyson sphere

[Liberator]

Solar Power is eco-friendly and easy to get, the problem is that it is incoherently expensive to implement and maintain on the kind of scale we're talking about.  The only way it becomes cost-effective is if some kind of massive network of orbital collectors were to be established.

Wind is worse in terms of cost of both implementation and maintenance.  The only place in the US where there is sufficient open space to build the number and size of wind farms in the Great Plains and most of them are wild life sanctuaries/National Forests/National Parks.  Also, one natural disaster(which in the Great Plains means tornadoes) and a large segment of the country is without power for weeks while the damaged windmills are replaced.

It good that you're thinking, but you're also buying to the eco-nonsense that we can become a non-impact species.

I mean the idea that we can just toss Fossil Fuels is bunk.  Even if we managed to switch out energy reliance over to something eco-friendly, FFs would still be needed for countless industrial uses from plastic production to cost effective lubricants.

Of course, the ideal would be to convert the solar system into a dyson sphere

There's not enough raw material in the entire system to build one of those.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Liberator
The only way it becomes cost-effective is if some kind of massive network of orbital collectors were to be established.

Now, that's what I'm talkin' about

Seriously though, a network of satillites transmitting the power to Earth (either laser or maser) would work well.

Of course, cost to launch the necessary network would be high, so a space elevator would be required.

This isn't some flight of fancy idea either.

Fossil fuels will still be needed for things such as plastics, lubricants, etc. Having solar/hydrogen for "standard" every day consumption allows for fossil fuels to be spent on things such as the plastics.

Originally posted by Liberator
There's not enough raw material in the entire system to build one of those.

True, that was more of a joke then anything.

[neo_hermes]

what about Kupiers belt(sp?)...there's got to be plenty of roids out there for our needs...

[Ace]

Nope, the solar system including all KBOs has only a small percent of what's needed for a dyson like construct.

Keep in mind, comets and KBOs are effectively snowballs, not a whole lot there.

[Liberator]

Other problems arise when you take into some of the more "eccentric" theroies out there, such as the one the suggests Sol has a brown dwarf companion on an 11,000 year cycle.  Bear in mind that if that was true Jupiter, Saturn and the rest couldn't exist in the gravitational enviroment because if such a thing exists it would be very close astronomically or traveling incredibly fast relative to Sol.  Either way the gravity would be different and Gas Giants would be either smaller or nonexistent.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by Liberator
Solar Power is eco-friendly and easy to get, the problem is that it is incoherently expensive to implement and maintain on the kind of scale we're talking about.  The only way it becomes cost-effective is if some kind of massive network of orbital collectors were to be established.

It won't be for long thanks to a nice discovery made at the DOE facility I work at

Originally posted by Liberator
Wind is worse in terms of cost of both implementation and maintenance.  The only place in the US where there is sufficient open space to build the number and size of wind farms in the Great Plains and most of them are wild life sanctuaries/National Forests/National Parks.  Also, one natural disaster(which in the Great Plains means tornadoes) and a large segment of the country is without power for weeks while the damaged windmills are replaced.

Wrong again - there are plenty of places in which to build win generation arrays in the great plains that are _NOT_ parks -- They've doing it in iowa extensively.  
They can also build them in windy coastal regions - like california

Originally posted by Liberator
It good that you're thinking, but you're also buying to the eco-nonsense that we can become a non-impact species.

Did I say we could become a non-impact species you windbag?  We're always going to have an impact - however our dependance upon fossil fuel is total and completely bull****

Originally posted by Liberator
I mean the idea that we can just toss Fossil Fuels is bunk.  Even if we managed to switch out energy reliance over to something eco-friendly, FFs would still be needed for countless industrial uses from plastic production to cost effective lubricants.

Wrong again -- they have excellent non-petroleum plastics and lubricants, the non-petro lubricants are in several was superior

[Kazan]

oh Kara - implying that i cannot 'see the writing on the wall' (dinosaur comment) is rather insulting, and you intended it to be


as for "taking this seriously" - there is a difference between taking the threat of humanity seriously, and advising caution on jumping to conclusions on a specific theory

[vyper]

I think we could do a lot more to build more self-reliant houses. I.e. Solar panels for power, water collections systems, heating based on combination of above, etc. Sure, it's initially a limiting system but with enough money put into it you could develop a very effective and eco-friendly self-sufficient house (within reason).

That'd cut down on a lot of consumption, and business taxes could cover the larger more industrial systems that still required the national grid.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Liberator
The only place in the US where there is sufficient open space to build the number and size of wind farms in the Great Plains and most of them are wild life sanctuaries/National Forests/National Parks.  Also, one natural disaster(which in the Great Plains means tornadoes) and a large segment of the country is without power for weeks while the damaged windmills are replaced.

You have a country as big as a continent, and you're telling us there's no room for some eol... dunno how you say in english ?
I wonder how they did in Holland