Global warming becomes even harder to deny... - Page 3

No, you can't. Not by conservation, anyway.

Yes, you can. Your hypothetical "someone else will use it" idea is just that, hypothetical.

This isn't NihilisticOutsider.

No - it seems to be IrrationalOutsider. You guys are so resistant to this idea because you have wasted a bunch of your lives fighting helplessly against CO2. I believe that humans cause global warming, and that we don't have the capibility to stop it, so we better get ready for a new geological Epoch with a thermal maximum followed by the NeoEocene - global warming is much worse that you make out because of its invincibility, and harping about Prius cars is just fiddling while Rome burns.

You can see supply and demand setting prices if you just look at the world around you. Look at the patterns of car purchasers - they buy less efficient cars when the price of gas goes down.

It is unbelievable to me that you all can't see the evidence that fills the world around you. Just look at the prices of any commodity - Australian fruit is expensive right now because of crop failures, price goes up and people use less. If the whole US stopped eating imported rice, the price would drop, and other countries would jump on that oppertunity to feed themselves. etc.

The same things apply to oil, coal and natural gas.

There are only three ways to stop global warming:

1. Kill most of the people in the world, as many as you can without disrupting our technological culture.
2. Global totalitarian state, probably combined with #1
3. Invent an alternative energy source which can scale, and is cheaper than petrochemicals. This will definitely not be wind power, geothermal, tidal power, or biofuel, and will probably not be solar or nuclear fission.

Actually, biofuel may be the answer, in that it will cause massive famine in poor countries due to farmland competition. Biofuel can't supply 6-9 billion people with energy, but it could supply 500-800 million people.

Just because you...say so. Ok, cool.
Are you Moe's older brother or father? I see your logic:

Laws of nature, exist only when it's convenient for me.

Free market capitalism and its laws, such as supply and demand only exist when they're convenient to me.

People who buy energy efficient cars are "environmentalists" (as if that were a bad thing) and SUV keying eco-tuhrrorists.
We have wasted a bunch of our lives fighting helplessly against CO2? Is that the best you could make up? How pathetic. But I guess it fits your little imaginary world better, rather than realizing we're just regular people who want to save money and do our part, whether "right" or not to reduce our OWN footprints.
The only time we've wasted...is with you.

That's not what you were saying earlier when you said: "If global warming is a real phenomenon, and if it is caused by man, it is probably unstopable".
You're the one with the Prius obsession. So what are you doing about it? Please enlighten us.

Don't become a cartoon man.

Don't become a cartoon....too late.

Every reply you make is poorly thought out blather, I banish you to my ignore list. And my opinion is still the same, if you carefully compare that post to my more recent ones with a rational mind, you will notice.

Well 1 and 3 seem to solve the problem.

No,No!! Please, don't banish me!!!! Must suck to get tangled in your own web of contradictions and irrational thoughts. Pretty weak.


I'm partial to number 1 myself. Especially if we get to use our nukes! Yipee!

I was thinking more Matrix-y or Hitleresque furnace.

I'm not advocating #1, mind you - also the decomposing bodies would produce more CO2, unfortunately.

You seem to be assuming that we couldn't come up with a way to capture that CO2 and use it for our own nefarious purposes.

Tax incentives would only work if you had a world government. Even if you got 90% of the world's countries to fall in line, that would just make the financial rewards that much greater for the remaining 10%. Anyway, they would not fall in line - look at the Kyoto accord.


The more successful that you are convincing people to conserve, the greater the price-lowering effect of that conservation on oil. People are selfish, they will burn the oil given the chance.


Scaling alternative energies is a long-shot bet. They currently supply less than 1% of our energy needs - and only 15% of our energy is CO2-free (including Nuclear). Our CO2-free energy supply has to scale to 3200% (to get to 5x our current supply) in the next 40 years - that is 9% growth, not so bad except most of that is nuclear fission and we will run out of uranium (unless we allow breeder reactors in the 3rd world).

The problem is that I have never heard of anyone trying to figure out a back up plan - all our effort is going into conservation and alternative energies.

You're a brave man Shetline. However...........

All action is futile. Repeat. All action is futile.

No, since a large-scale CO2 scrubber has already been invented. If we cut down our current emissions and put the scrubbers into use, we'll be fine in a century or two.

link? Cutting down on our emissions is impossible, unless you mean emit less CO2 while still burning the same amount of oil (as I explained above), but if we could pull carbon out of a smokestack and store it, then problem solved (provided the process does not use some scarce material, or have some noxious by-product).

Scrubbers would also probably be expensive, and therefore limited to the west for the most part. Which would further increase the benefit of burning as much oil as you can make a profit on (to keep it out of the hands of the unscrubbed 3rd world).

Oh boy. Hey Gilsch you like my sig?

Bullshit. Without conservation, people living in industrialized American cities would have to wear gas masks RIGHT NOW. Conservation HAS worked, if not so clearly for global warming (which is definitely debatable), then at least, obviously, for urban pollution.

This is an automated response. All action is futile. Repeat. All action is futile.

Any reason why I should or shouldn't?

Good points. Here's a little fact that's overlooked somehow. Gas prices are higher in most of those poor countries. My family owns coffee plantations in Central America and I can tell you that gas prices are at least 10% higher there-at $3/gallon in CA that's 30 cents more- except for diesel which gets subsidized a little bit by governments.

The country I'm most familiar with has the lowest prices in the region. At $100 monthly minimum wage it's silly to assume that like you said, they would be able to afford SUVs and monster trucks and if they could...somehow...then be able to afford the high prices of gas.

1. You realise, of course, that China and Russia are allowed to pollute as much as they like in the Kyoto accord, and even leftist european countries that signed it against their financial interest are violating their quotas.

2. You must not watch the news much - "Sanctioned price fixing?". Look at the whining that is going on about $3 gas - and it is going much higher without price fixing. Any pollitician in a democratic country that tried this would be voted out very quickly.

3. No matter how poor those 20% of the non-complying countries are, factories will move there soon enough. Anyway, every country will be non-complying (as you can see with Kyoto).

Without a global dictatorship that has total control of its citizens, conservation will not work period.

Of course conservation will not work. Why? Because we can't conserve. We can not bring ourselves to conserve. By nature, we are just too greedy. It'd never work. Sort of like communism. Seriously.

What's the real problem? Half of it is tech/behavior leading to GHG emissions. What is the other half? Population.

Per capita emission rates have remained static since the 70s. Population is skyrocketing. The REAL root of the problem is population. And those explosive populations in developing nations will, yes they will, have factories. That, and of course America is still growing substantially, along with many other industrialized nations.

Hits on the other part of your quote, now you see why I made it my sig Gilsch.

Are there any other environmental scientists here?

Anyone that does not "believe" in global warming is just plain wrong. As far as scientists can tell. See the other thread, I don't feel like rehashing.

I would be fine with the situation if we were preparing for disaster as well as trying to conserve, but we are not. There is no effort to re-locate populations away from low lying areas like New Orleans and Myanmar, for example - we wait for Nature to kill the people instead.

We need to spend time figuring out how to quickly convert atmospheric methane into CO2, for example, because that would help us eliminate the thermal maximum event. If we get to the Eocene conditions without dying off, then we are home free - the Eocene was some sweet sh*t - tropical jungles from pole to pole, and lots of rainfall - not as much land, but more usable land. Warm oceans, coconuts hanging from every tree, it will be a return to the garden of eden (but without man, if we don't start getting ready to kill the thermal maximum).

I'm posting primaily to see if I am still getting the "you can't post, cause it's been less than 30 secs since your last post" error msg. [mods may delete this at will, please]

Aquatic, glad to see someone is left in the world that understands that population pressure is the primary source of most of our ills; povery, environmental destruction, etc.

e1 61 89 78, your point is well taken. I have pondered this and it would be a monumental task to say the least. Even today, in America, most areas or cities cannot handle 2" of rain per hour without disasterous flooding. Add the anticipated 20-30 rise in sea level, well we're a talkin a major mo-fo disaster! I heard people bandy about the idea that we would have to build some levees. Hell, most folk today don't think we can build 1500 miles of fence to ward off illigal immigrants. What would we need to hold back the 'aquatic' problems? {pun intended, no harm, no foul} My guess is about 20 or 30 THOUSAND MILES of levees. MOVE CITIES???? Hell, we sat around for 100 years waiting for NewOleans to fall into the sea. But I do agree, we need to work equally hard at correcting, mitigating, and responding to what is to come.

Paz

Actually, total sea level rise will be 270'.

Well, if you are correct, the the problem wouldn't be 10X as bad, but 100X as bad.

I'm not up to doing the math, but I would guess that moving that much mass/weight FROM the poles TO the equator would be enough to slow the rotation of the earth. Our 24 hour day would grow by a noticable amount.

Maybe we'll all start growing gills, and additional webbing 'tween the digits.

Paz

I doubt it, most of the earth is made of molten metal and rock - and the density increases as you go down. The thin crust of rock and water is neglegable.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science....ap/index.html

A little something about Gore's movie.

Yeah e# that sounds really great, except for one problem. You think the global ecosystem will evolve fast enough? I think biodiversity short term (hundreds of years) will take a hit. Of course long-term it will go up, as we know, wetlands and tropics have the highest biodiversity and production. Or perhaps the Earth will dry out. Maybe it will get wetter. Maybe the thermohaline current will stop. This is the most complicated topic...there is. Amazing how something so simple...1 variable, 1 degree...can have such an impact. Hey that went all Lord of the Rings eh.

Better get to buildin' an ark folks!

It has been a while since people talked about the population crises. I guess some think the doom and gloom didn't pan out, but really much of it has. We just get use to loosing are open space, environment, resources little by little.

In an ideal world we would have stopped at a couple of billion people, but it is too late for that.

Did you mean the forests? Sadly they're under some pressure, but maybe when the permafrost melts, they can move northward.

We should attack the problem from all directions and not wait to see if A or B or C work or aren't working fast enough.

We should get people educated on the problem so that they can make a decision to become involved. One option would be to become educated and take action from an individual standpoint. Buy products that conserve energy. Buy products that produce energy. Try to become energy independent as soon as the technologies allow for it. (in rural areas it's happening...it's still expensive at the urban level).

GE (I'm only choosing them for name recognition) is implementing an initiative called Ecomagination. It will invest $1.5 Billion annually by 2010 in research in clean technology research and development which is equivalent to 50% of it's current R&D budget.

Toyota(yes, Toyota) is developing and testing genetically engineered trees and plants that have a superior ability to recycle air and remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Another option or step.

But, but...that won't do it! Well, it's one of the many approaches that are gonna be needed to tackle the problem. For the ones with reading comprehension skills: ONE OF MANY.

Scientists are also working on biodiesel from algae because some forms of algae are capable of producing 30 times more oil per acre than the crops we are currently using for biofuels. That could alleviate the concern about feeding the people or the SUVs. ANOTHER option.

Again, I can't emphasize this enough. Education and helping people get educated. We can get involved from an individual standpoint...NOW. For example, we could switch to compact fluorescent lights (or CFLs). Don't laugh.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published a report that says that using compact fluorescents and other energy efficient lighting would cut the world's electricity bill by one tenth. From the link:
I 'bolded" the part about better building regulations. Like I've been saying on this thread, here's where we come in aswell. Since commercial and public sector buildings account for 43% of the electricity used for lighting, we can elect individuals, or get the ones we voted for to give us better building regulations for example. Another approach, another option.

And with super efficient LEDs around the corner (getting better and better all the time) the future looks bright, no pun intended, in this area. Plus they are very cool.

I could go on and on but..I won't. We have options and not just waiting for the shit to hit the fan and then try to re-locate hundreds of millions if not a billion people. It's frustrating to read posts by know-it-alls who'd rather sit there and type excuses and "reasons" why X and Y won't work instead of becoming aware of the technologies that do exist now (and the ones being worked on) and the options that we currently have available.

Sure, let's prepare for a worst case scenario, but first let's work on the root of the problem now because we have plenty of options and we won't find out how far they'll take us until we try/adopt them. Besides, the more we can lessen the effects of global warming now, the more time to come up with better solutions and technologies.

An Inconvenient Truth

Given how dubious the science is, particularly with the grifters who pose as objective scientists, it's best we wait and see.

First, continued global warming at predicted rates IS not a 100% certainty, any more than the reconstructed climate history that says current warming is unpredicented (the NAS gave it a 66% likehood of being "unprecedented").

Untested and uncertain models of long-term trends, even if they were perfect for human caused warming, cannot predict fluxations in non-human forcing (or non-forcing).

Second, the degree of warming is a wide range...1.6 to 5.5 degrees C.

Third, the impact of warming (it could be a very good thing) is not certain.

Fourth, the financial impact is not certain.

Fifth, the effectiveness of counter measures are uncertain.

Sixth, the cost of prevention (or remediation or adaptation) is uncertain.

THEREFORE WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING?

Nonsense...

Max go back and read some of the info on this. From what I'm reading here it sounds like you know very little.


" Third, the impact of warming (it could be a very good thing) is not certain. "

Lots of stuff out there about the impact. Written I might add by people much more versed in this subject than you or I.


Ps. Who are these " grifters "? What proof do you have that they are " grifters "? They certainly have the credentials to add credence to their claims and integrity.