Eaarth

[tumnasgt]

Oil will run out. Burning things for energy has negative effects on people's health.

Regardless of whether climate change is real, reducing energy consumption is an important step in removing the dependance on finite and unhealthy energy sources.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by tumnasgt

Burning things for energy has negative effects on people's health.

...tell that to (A) the nature-induced forest fires, which ultimately "regenerate" forest growth and re-growth; and, (B) the volcanos that continuely spew more gases than we've ever done.

[tumnasgt]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...tell that to (A) the nature-induced forest fires, which ultimately "regenerate" forest growth and re-growth; and, (B) the volcanos that continuely spew more gases than we've ever done.

They are bad for people's health, yes. But that is no excuse to add more to the air. Kinda like if a deer craps on someone's lawn, there's no reason for you to do it as well.

We can't stop (natural) forest fires or volcanos, but we can reduce the amount we need to burn for energy.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by tumnasgt

They are bad for people's health, yes. But that is no excuse to add more to the air.

...a "Devils' Advocate" response: ...well, since CO2 is a bad thing, produced by humans breathing, so maybe we should eliminate human life?

...there's a vast difference between 'elimination' and 'moderation'.

...I'm for the later, not the first.

[tumnasgt]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...a "Devils' Advocate" response: ...well, since CO2 is a bad thing, produced by humans breathing, so maybe we should eliminate human life?

I'm not talking about CO2 at all. I'm talking about all the other rubbish in the fumes that cause things like lung cancer.

I do actually believe that it is responsable for people to have 2 or less children, as population growth isn't sustainable, there is a limit as to how many people we can feed with the land we have.


If you want to go down the CO2 road, you might want to look into the fact that volcanoes emit roughly 1% of what humans do, and when they erupt there is no obvious change in CO2 levels. Volcanoes pose far more risk in the way of ash, lava, and earthquakes than they do in the way of CO2 emissions.

Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter - environment - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist

[RobertSmalls]

For my part, I believe that humans are a force of change on the planet, but one that's easily overestimated. We have put up about 5 million mi² of cropland, at the expense of forests, jungles, swamps, and badlands. But that is just 2.6% of the surface area of the earth (9% of its land surface). Global climate change would probably be more gradual without us, but it would still happen. The changes will be good for some and bad for others. Probably more bad than good, though (more desertification than the inverse).

Oh well, none of it will matter once we develop an economical method of irrigating with salt water. Talk about making the deserts bloom. This could be accomplished with cheap (it would need to be almost free) desalinization and perhaps some genetic engineering. Or perhaps we'll develop a method of cultivating and harvesting plant life in the ocean.

Sure, it's in the distant future, and humanity will already have been succeeded by an upstart AI before we figure out how to double or octuple the amount of the earth's surface under cultivation.



Humans are so keen to speculate on their destruction.

[NeilBlanchard]

We also over estimate the volume of the atmosphere -- it is very thin. If the Eaarth was a ball then the atmosphere is thinner than a coat of varnish.

Carbon dioxide from breathing is just recycling the oxygen that the plants have put out. It depends on the source of the carbon: "old" carbon that was underground for millions of years that get reintroduced to the air is NOT the same as carbon dioxide that comes from burning wood, for example. That is "new" carbon, or "short-cycled" carbon -- it is the "long-cycled" carbon that is increasing the carbon dioxide in a geological blink of an eye.

The northern boreal forests cause the carbon dioxide cycle to "breathe" in and out once a year -- this is the famous Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide graph; showing the annual cycle in red:



You've got one guess as to what the blue line is.

[Weather Spotter]

Ok, show me the graph including all volcanic eruptions (also measure none CO2 gases) and go back to 1750.

Now show that any change is from man.

Now show me that this change is outside the bounds of normal say 1 mill yr.

Now show me that any change is bad.

Should we pollute?

To what degree?

I am all for a zero impact on the earth life but I want an equal or better standard of living. I want to keep life expectancy rates above 70 yr. Before modernization it was something like 40 or 50 yr and they had things like the back death kill off 50% of Europe. Show me a way to change that keeps us moving forward.

We got into this mess over 200 years, expect that fixing it might take 1-3x that length of time (most problems take longer to solve).

So a gradual change, this can be done with advances in technology. In 30 years we have gone from 50% power from non renewable s (dams provided clean power), now we get 22-25% from renewable s (dams are about the same # of megawatt and are 18% total). The % renewable s is growing .5-1% a year. At that rate will will get them up to 40-60% of total need. Any more then that will lead to instability unless they figure a way of storing power.

Toss in Nuclear power and you got all the power we need. We can keep consumption at the same amount or slightly lower it by technological advances. If we do this over the next 100 -200 years we will be fine.

Cut the panic out and you will win me over much faster.

[NeilBlanchard]

We have had lots of volcanic eruptions since 1958 -- those are included in the Mauna Loa measurements. What greenhouse gasses do volcanoes emit?

We are starting to see the amplifying/feedback warming: methane is being released from the tundra and the permafrost is melting. The permafrost... is melting.

Course News Global Climate Change Seminar EnvS 501

This is from a few days ago; the biggest storm ever recorded in the Midwest:



One fifth of the entire country of Pakistan got flooded, while Moscow burned. The Philippines got hit by super-monsoon Megi with sustained winds of 178MPH winds with gusts to 195MPG. Vietnam got 30.5 inches of rain in one storm.

This is not normal.

[Thymeclock]

Cut the panic out and you will win me over much faster.

'Tain't panic. Attempts at persuasion follow a playbook script designed to advance a political agenda, with a guilt trip thrown in for good measure.

If we could only get rid of those pesky humans, mother earth would return to a perfect state of nature. The ideological roots of this mindset can be traced back to eighteenth century France. It is no more worthy of consideration now than it was then.