[Kszyhu]

Nuke everything... except Europe, we're dying out anyway.

[ssmit132]

Well, Nuke would nuke everything.

[NGTM-1R]

We discussed people like you on page 1.

That would imply dialogue. We really had a monologue if anything. If you want to actually have a discussion with him, it'd be good to start now.

1.3Billion cows, 700 million tonnes of rice, and then the rest of your post, plus more since we tear up the natural environment and damage most of the checks and balances.

Uh, I think the point of the rest of his post was that it's not natural. And if we're really honest, it's not the cows we need to go after as a major source first, but the goats. Then we work on the cows.

The goats are unpopular to mention because they're the preferred method in the third world, requiring less upkeep and open space than cows, but they're actually much worse.

[jr2]

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100916/full/news.2010.475.html

"We just don't know enough," he adds. "You can take an organism into the lab and do a respiration study, but it's hard to take the lab to a kilometre deep in the ocean and do respiration studies and controlled experiments."

I think that line sums up the problems with figuring out what is responsible for global warming, too... you can do all the experiments you want in a lab, under an environment controlled by you, however, there is no guarantee that in nature some process you know nothing about (or that relates in a way you don't know with your little experiment) won't interfere with your predicted results when those circumstances happen in the wild.

As for the name of the bacteria:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129475847

FLATOW: Thank you. I'm always bad at that, as you know. Tell us about, say, your article - you - tell us about this new - these new bacteria, and they're not just one species, but a whole bunch of them that you've been finding out there.

Dr. HAZEN: Yeah. So what we did was to do some molecular techniques, looking at the RNA, DNA, proteins and lipids and show what the community structure was in this deep-sea plume that we saw, and then what - compare that to what we saw outside of that plume.

[QuantumDelta]

We discussed people like you on page 1.

That would imply dialogue. We really had a monologue if anything. If you want to actually have a discussion with him, it'd be good to start now.

1.3Billion cows, 700 million tonnes of rice, and then the rest of your post, plus more since we tear up the natural environment and damage most of the checks and balances.

Uh, I think the point of the rest of his post was that it's not natural. And if we're really honest, it's not the cows we need to go after as a major source first, but the goats. Then we work on the cows.

The goats are unpopular to mention because they're the preferred method in the third world, requiring less upkeep and open space than cows, but they're actually much worse.

I know you get a boner the moment you think you can get one up on me.
But I was agreeing with him.

And, More cows than goats(goats+sheep) in the world by the sum of what, 300million? probably more by now.
Sure, goats are worse, but lets be honest, it doesn't /really/ matter what "farm" animal you pick, if it's food for us and it can be raised in numbers, we cultivate it to support us.
The big exception to that is the oceans. Based on current numbers it's quite possible we'll be out of commercially viable fishing spots in 50 years, because we're simply not doing enough to let fish stocks recover.

As for the other thing, I think my distaste for people who think it's fine cuz the planet is gonna cope. Cuz, lets face it, after all the facts and info presented about our effects on the environment and ecosystem, if someone isn't convinced by now, it's because they simply don't want to be, and probably never will be.
Although I'm quite fond of animal life, I'm more concerned with our civilisation, and it's survival, if we go on the way we are, we are slowly sinking chances of genuinely making sustainable lives for everyone.
The earlier we start really taking these things seriously, on a global level (from the average joe to the global banker, the festival reveller to the people in power), the better off we will be once all the oil is actually gone, once the food stocks have completely maxed out their efficiency and wont ever produce more.

Why? Because it's much easier to build new infrastructure when you have a support system to do it, and the most vital one we have at the moment, is oil. Once that's gone, everything will be so much more painful to move foreward with, and many things will have to be given up completely.

[General Battuta]

Could everyone indulging in personal attacks whose name is not Battuta please stop

[Drogoth]

iamzack made an excellent point

What are we going to do about it?

Yes, humans are NOT the center of the universe, but does that mean we should just give up and let climate change drown thousands of us? It is our responsibility to continue the existence of our species, whether we're the center of the universe or not doesn't come into it. To paraphrase an excellent line from a show

I don't care if we wake up when all the suns have burnt out and the universe is winding down to die... so long as we're there to see it.

Climate change will affect us, natural or not. Whats the plan? Because we need one.

[redsniper]

I thought the plan was to cut down on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to try and at least reduce how fast things heat up. AFAICT the most feasible way to do that would be to build more nuclear plants or something other than coal-burning plants. But apparently no one wanted to do either of those things, so I don't know what the **** is going on anymore.

[Mars]

Capitalism

[Drogoth]

Capitalism

All hail

[iamzack]

Nobody wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard. We still deal with radioactive material by burying it.

We should invest in finding more efficient alloys to store hydrogen in so we can power everything with it instead. :|

[IceFire]

Interesting stuff. The Earth has quite a few checks and balances... although we push the limits far too often the planet and indeed much of the life will continue to survive. Probably thrive. No matter what we do. Which is good news... so the thing we really need to focus on is our survival. Methane release or not... the climate is changing and it will change "rapidly" over the next few hundred years thanks to what we've been doing for the last few hundred years/or not. It doesn't really matter. We have to be prepared and plan ahead... not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

wha...? it's almost like the planet has been around a fair while and endured **** far scarier than us or something, but that cannot be, for we are little god people, we HAVE to be special in some way.

Uhm... You do realize that the question isn't whether we are causing climate change or not, but rather HOW ARE WE GOING TO GO ON?

By planning ahead? Seems like a good method to me

Thinking about it more... let's apply some project management here. We can categorize our risks, resources, major show stoppers and budget and move forward.

At this point it doesn't matter what the short term plans are...

Wouldn't planning ahead involve avoiding the problem altogether?

Well everything I've read recently suggests that we've already set things in motion. The 300 years of industrial revolution and pumping whatever we wanted into the atmosphere for that period of time is starting to have an effect. Or we can go with the "it's naturally happening" people. Either way the climate IS changing and that has consequences and it will shift what has worked for us for the last few hundred years around. Recently I've less seen it as saving the planet (planet will survive ultimately) and more about saving ourselves.

So rather than avoidance (which I don't think is possible at this point - I used to think so but not recently) it's about mitigation. If we can I'd love to see the old camping adage: Leave the camp site cleaner than when you found it.

[Rodo]

Capitalism

 

[IceFire]

Nobody wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard. We still deal with radioactive material by burying it.

We should invest in finding more efficient alloys to store hydrogen in so we can power everything with it instead. :|

Not a traditional nuclear plant anyways. There are other ways to do nuclear... including some very interesting efforts to create small self contained nuclear units that would power smaller cities. Also I think China and the US and a few others are investing in... was it Boron? I can't remember. Anyways in a different type of nuclear fuel that leaves very little in the way of radioactivity behind. It's an old thing rather than a new thing but at the time everyone went with uranium and plutonium because it was useful in making weapons. Since that isn't the focus anymore... new methods are coming.

To solve our energy needs we need:

1) Better nuclear
2) Maintain our hydro
3) Use tidal, wind geothermal and solar where appropriate (i.e. the giant solar project in the Sahara desert for instance)
4) A smarter power grid that is better able to manage where the power needs to be rather than loosing it all through inefficiencies
5) More efficient devices/appliances/etc. There's a lot of wasted energy that doesn't need to be wasted.

If I were to add a 6...

6) Re think our society a little bit. We're all so caught up with needing to drive and go everywhere all the time. The traditional office is required for some professions but maybe we need a rethink there. Either we need to be closer to our jobs or our jobs need to be virtualized where it is practical to do so.

[redsniper]

No, we can't do that because then the top petroleum execs might not be able to afford their second yacht.

[iamzack]

lol, second yacht? oh, you mean second solid gold yacht. gotcha.

[jr2]

Helium-3 Helium-3 fusion FTW

[BengalTiger]

...hydrogen...

And where will you get the hydrogen from?

[General Battuta]

...hydrogen...

And where will you get the hydrogen from?

There's hydrogen everywhere. Everywhere.

[666maslo666]

1. advanced nuclear reactors (capable of burning thorium, current nuclear waste, and our uranium resources will last for thousands of years with them)
2. Solar concentrator plants (mechanical, not photovoltaics) - the most promising alternative energy source
3. energy storage and car fuel using hydrogen and this - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351341/Relief-pumps-Revolutionary-hydrogen-fuel-cost-just-90p-GALLON-run-existing-cars.html

Problem solved.