Ozone Hole Will Heal, Say British Scientists 265
Therin writes: "According to the London Times, inside of 50 years the ozone hole will be healed, and it will shrink in a decade, without any further actions. Of course, a few volcanoes in there could mess up the timetable ..." The article seems a bit uncritical of claims like, "We now have the science of the ozone layer buttoned down," but it does sound like good news.
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:1)
Plus a 1.5 GW reactor would only use 350kg of fuel a year, compared to a coal power plants 100 million tons, and there is enough fuel on earth to supply electricity to the entire world (at current rate of increwase in demand) for 1 billion years, compared to 250 years for coal.
Re:Bust out the CFC's (Score:1)
See: Environmental Overkill, Dr. Dixie Lee Ray
See: http://www.acton.org/publicat/randl/92fall/ray.ht
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't matter... (Score:1)
Actually, predicting the future on a scale like this is *really* stupid
Is it really a prediction? For what i see it's just a scientific suggestion based on a matematical model. It may not be perfect but still worth. Hay, they use something similar to convince us to stop using CFC...
It's not stupid to "predict" what will happen in 10, 30 or 50 years. Of course it's in a long time in one life. But most of us will be still alive in that time. And it isn't a long time for humanity.
Re:ozone layer (Score:1)
Re:ozone hole (Score:1)
Re:Fission vs. fusion (Score:1)
Fusion power is the only source capable of supplying electricity to meet demands (projected from the current rate of increase in demands) for more than 250 years, which is when coal would run out. There's only enough easily accessible uranium for 20 years of operation, with fission supplying the entire world's demand, and most of that is located in politically unstable places (Siberia, Congo), although Canada has large reserves as well.
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:2)
Contradictions (Score:1)
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:1)
Yes, the earth will "adjust" to human intervention, exterminating that species and many others if that is what's necessary for it to "heal itself".
Fortunately, in the case of CFC usage, homo sapiens sapiens is proving itself to be a sufficiently intelligent species to correct its suicidal behavior before the earth "adjusts" too much.
Ah, but they would say that... (Score:5)
I think what this story is saying is that Rupert Murdoch thinks that sustained, co-ordinated action on global warming would hurt his profits. I don't think it says anything meaningful about the state of the planet, the ozone hole or anything else.
People think of the London Times as a respectable newspaper because it used to be a respectable newspaper. Frankly, that was a long time ago.
(Of course this doesn't mean the ozone hole isn't healing, just that I wouldn't trust the London Times to tell me the earth was round if RM thought there was profit to be made out of a belief in a flat one)
Fission vs. fusion (Score:5)
The technical solution has been well in hand for decades in the form of nuclear fission.
The solution, as far as I'm concerned, is in nuclear fusion.
Nuclear fusion, if it is developed, will with high certainty be significantly more expensive than fission. This creates its own environmental problems.
[Fusion is] the only power source which has little to no environmental impact...
There are no known power sources with zero environmental impact so it can't have "little to no environmental impact". It also can't be the "only power source which has little" environmental impact since the consensus of energy scientists including solar power researchers is that fission is one such power source.
What? There are power sources that don't produce large amounts of electricity? A fusion power plant is just another steam or gas turbine power plant. A fusion power plant will produce the same amount of electricity as any other steam or gas turbine. The limits are in how hot your design and your metals and your bearings and your lubricants will let you get your steam or gas, how efficient and how big and how many turbines you have, and how much water you have access to to condense your steam or gas; not how dense your heat source is.
More on fission [stanford.edu] by John McCarthy, the inventor of the LISP programming language.
Re:Americans (Score:1)
It seems that in the US, so many things are just inferior copies (i.e. Budwiesser) that they now need to clarify when someone is talking about the original.
Re:Fission vs. fusion (Score:1)
There's enough deuterium in the oceans (1 part in ~1000 hydrogen atoms), and lithium in the earth's crust (used to make tritium, by neutron capture and decay) for about 1 billion years.
Plus the fuel for fusion power is more evenly distributed over the globe than uranium. (Water is available everwhere people live, especially in the tiny quantities required, about 2250 tonnes a year, and lithium is common as well)
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:1)
And I'm sure the people who modded up the parent post up are nodding their heads right now. Well, newsflash, people, this is no better, it's worse than those sappy Greens. Yea, that's right, this is an appeal to mysticism, or at least, to fate, to fix the things that we fucked up. It's dishonest and cowardly.
"Give time and a little patience, the planet is more than adequate at adjusting itself back to its center"
How do you know that? And how long do you think it will take? Does the word "geological time scale" mean anything to you? Do you think it will fix itself while we keep making things worse? How do you think the people affected by ecological disaster feel about your reassurances?
See kids, the Greens want you think you have no power. They want you to think you're weak compared to Mother Nature, so you'll humble yourself like them, and then respect the environment out of dogmatic brainwashing. That's complete bullshit. We made Mother Nature her our bitch and now we're giving her a good smack around. We can destroy this planet if we want to, so eat that, tofu eaters!
With power comes responsibility. With awareness comes self evaluation. No freakin' animal has that. And right now, we're shitting in our living rooms because we're too fucking lazy to walk to the bathroom. We want to shirk the responsibility of cleaning up the mess, and we do it by corporate whitewashing and holding up the image of the "radical environmentalist" to scare people.
No, I'm not saying you should buy the chicken littles at face value. I'm asking you to give the people who say "don't worry, everything will be alright" the same sort of mocking skepticism. They don't know what the fuck they're talking about anymore than the Greens do. They've swallowed just as much propoganda, and a lot of them have been bought by commercial interests.
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Simple solution (Score:2)
This is an argument (and a very nice simple retort frankly) that I hear often, but in reality it does not hold water. What humans do is nothing like the symbiosis achieved by the rest of the world's organisms... in the natural world when something is created is becomes a resource for those who would exploit it. What you are arguing is very true in nature - the system adjusts to accept new variables. What humans are doing would probably elicit such a response from the natural world if we weren't destroying all natural space and doing this all in don't act the way humans do (sure they 'adapt' to their environment, and to some degree adapt the environment to themselves) but they do NOT create the overwhelming levels of everything we do (and I wont bother listing all the pollutants we release into the world). The changes you expect, the harmonizing of our existence by nature, will never take place because we are killing (very literally) all other life on the planet. We are doing this by reducing habitat and emitting vast arrays of pollutants. There will be no 'nature' left soon to harmonize our actions. If we all left the planet right now, and returned in 500 years do you think you wouldn't find dead-lakes (full of acid) in Canada? Would you eat animals from the tributary rivers in Sarnia, Ontario (insert your regional chemical industry town)? Would you find Manhattan Island an overgrown forest? I don't think so, we are actively building a world devoid of nature. We will be soon be responsible for a lifeless planet. Also, when we have finished killing all life excepting ourselves, rats, raccoons, cockroaches and pigeons, we will also be responsible to artificially reproduce the functions of the planet once handled by nature. (Oxygen generation, cooling, mulching refuse)
-OR-
We can stop polluting, push back sprawl, curb population growth and try and act responsibly with the planet. Tough choice eh?!?!?!?
and when we "create" chemicals and substances, the reality is we're just remixing what we already see. Who knows. Polyurthene may be a naturally growing tree on some other planet. But obviously not here, and would be irrelevant.
We are acting like no other animal (would, does or can) - and any argument that we are is technically inept and sophomoric. Most often used by people who are not willing to take responsibility for their actions and abate the arguments of 'tree huggers'. When was the last time you saw an anteater building a nuclear-power plant or a Deer pushing down trees with a bulldozer*?? Puhleeze.
*Excepting any hallucinogenic camping trips you may have had...
Re:Ozone heretics (Score:1)
The truth is that we really can't destroy the enviroment, we can just change it enough to destroy ourselves and most of the enviromental activists will eventualy be shown to be as wrong about things as eveyone else is.
Example the Green-House gasses are Methane, Sulfur Oxides, Water Vapor and lastly Carbon dioxide and the majority of these gasses are released by naturaly processes that we have no control over.
Most Enviromental causes are thinly disguised anti-American, anti-technolgy plots that are almost terrorist organizations,
Re:Simple solution (Score:2)
Munged that line. Oops.
Re:Americans (Score:1)
Perhaps Gary would be a better choice.
Re:Ozone Hole (Score:1)
They're carried up along with the air in updrafts at the centre of anticyclones, and then get spread about by the turbulence in the atmosphere.
Their extra weight would also cause them to slightly tend to collect at the poles, where the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation is less, but this is probably a small effect.
Re:Americans (Score:4)
Your version may be more clear and intuitive for you, but it's certainly not for those of us in the UK. It's also wrong. While The Times was traditionally based in London, there are now 3 editorial centres, in London, Liverpool and Glasgow, and the paper itself is printed at various sites throughout the UK (and abroad, too).
On a similar note, though, even News International (publishers of The Times, and my former employer) resorted to calling The Sun "The London Sun" when posting notices around Hollywood trying to find Divine Brown.
Bust out the CFC's (Score:1)
-Andy
Re:WHO BELIEVES THEM??? (Score:1)
Re:Do you always believe what you read? (Score:1)
ozone hole (Score:1)
Re:Americans (Score:1)
just like they call it the "new york times", except in ny... where it's just "the times"
this isn't a tough concept...
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:5)
if one were somehow to collect all the radioactive particles expelled from a coal plant over the course of a year, it would be more massive than the amount of radioactive waste produced by a fission plant.
Not only that, but the fissionable energy of the radioactive particles in coal is greater than coal's hydrocarbon energy:
No longer the paper of record (Score:1)
That is until it was bought by Rupert Murdoch. Now it is a tabloid in broadsheet format that uses three syllable words. It is the complementary daily to the "Sun" (all naked women and salacious stories) designed to push Murdoch's views.
Fusion does produce radioactive waste. (Score:2)
Actually, fusion does produce radioactive waste. The fusion reactor vessel itself becomes dangerously radioactive due to activation by neutrons produced in fusion. It doesn't produce any _primary_ waste from its fuel, but you still have a few thousand tonnes of reactor to swap out every couple of decades.
There have been fuel combinations propsed that aren't supposed to produce neutron radiation, but these are much more difficult to ignite and produce much less energy. Thus, I suspect it'll be good old D-T or (when practical) D-D in any fusion plants that are actually built.
You would also have a heat pollution problem from any power plant that produces more energy than the Earth receives from the sun. There are ways of piping this heat back out of the ecosystem, but it's picky and costly enough that we probably won't bother until the earth starts warming again. Right now things like CO2-induced global warming mask the effect (and we haven't industrialized the planet yet).
No technical solution? You are misinformed. (Score:2)
Need to such CO2 out of the atmosphere: Here's just one low-tech solution that could sink billions of tonnes of CO2 [wired.com] into the ocean.
There's technical solutions for everything. The problem, of course, is how much it's gunna cost. Global warming is sooooo low on my list of worries for the future it isn't funny. We don't even have a decent computational model of the atmosphere to work from, and are decades from getting one - push for more money for that.
Something that pisses me off is that it's so easy to whine about global warming with a full stomach. There are lots of people in China, India, and Africa that haven't effectively gone through an industrial revolution and don't have that luxury. I'm not going to get high and mighty when they start burning billions of tonnes of coal to do what we did at the end of the 18th century.
America, wake up! (Score:2)
I like the article, but I would have written it upside down. The important part is indeed that science can convince governments to take action. An impressive reduction of CFC`s is the nice outcome in this case. But while it is one positive evolution, it fails to mention that CFC`s are being replaced by even more toxic substitutes (which don`t temper with the ozone layer, but just us). Anyway, it`s a real good thing the model predicts healing, but we`ll have to stay put and watch if things are really going the right way, so don`t blow your cans just yet. Both Europe and America do have some more cleaning up to do.
It also suggests that the conference in The Hagues about global warning (which was just the extension of the Kyoto conference 2 years ago) should have been enough reason for America to stop playing tough guy and aknowledge that we do actually have a fuel problem. In the last 5 years, flooding of towns, shifting of land, hurricanes and cyclones, have been very frequent in the news. And while we might not have the numbers or the models to agree on the scientific part of things yet, I think everybody is fairly convinced that producing as much carbon dioxide as possible isn`t going to help. The only ones that benefit from that are the ones at the top, who don`t run a government, but thier own bank account. (and sometimes, the difference is slim, which makes those issues even more acute.)..
When I heard the news that after Kyoto also The Hagues had failed, I felt really sad. Maybe if we`d organise such a conference in Washington DC, right under the nose of your president (well.. let`s assume you have a president..), maybe that would make you guys open your eyes.. it IS hartwarming to see that the green party is starting to play a factor in national elections, and I hope it will grow in size and strength. At least that shwows evidence that some US citizens are also concerned with their environment, good family life, healthy food etc.. just like us europeans.. And now I`m going to stop cuz I sound like Bono/U2
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
At no time in the past has our present ever existed. At no time in the future will our present ever become.
Things that humans create that will never have existed without us:
Shorelines inaccessible to animals - devastation of habitat
MASSIVE amounts of man created chemicals, fumes, particles in the Air, Water and Land.
Concrete Slabs that cover vast regions, interrupting water flow, water absorption in the land, and flooding
Destruction of natural habitat, rendering it inhospitable for all but humans.
Barrels of Nuclear Waste
Piles & Piles of Non-Biodegradable material stacking up everywhere.
Light pollution - creating an inhospitable environment for night-creatures in Human inhabited regions.
Killing animals with Cars needlessly
Genetically Engineered plants/animals causing unknown interaction with natural species [cnn.com]
Oil spills where none would have ever occurred before (Mississippi River [cnn.com], Brazil [cnn.com])
Expansion of Desserts, Raising Sea Levels, Un-told changes in global weather & natural disaster (caused by the above)
Physical destruction of animals themselves because of our sheer vanity and stupidity (Dolphins caught in tuna nets, Manatees slaughtered by recreational vehicles in Florida, Ivory, Snake Skin boots, birds smashing into glass high-rise buildings, and various other a$$hole things we do to animals for no reason)
I dont think any of these things would have occured, especially not all at once and all by themselves"
The idea that environmentally aware people are acting in emotionally to preserve a "particular state" is silly - the vastly un-natural changes we are causing is not in tune with the natural ebb and flows of the planet that shift ever so slightly over millennia... there is NOTHING natural or inevitable about what we are doing to the planet. Your argument that it is is blind, stupid and ignorant.
Re:Yes, but (Score:2)
equilibrium.
A given planetary equilibrium is not necessarily very comfortable.
Think of Venus.
Ozone isn't magic.. just ionized oxygen (Score:2)
Ozone is quite simply, an ion of Oxygen formed when you expose O2 to high intensity electric fields (arc gaps, or a welder), from some industrial processes, and most importantly, Ozone is formed when the UV light that is much stronger in the upper atmosphere causes the same effect and creates O3. I always wondered why we couldn't get planes or something with huge ozone generators on them to repair the damage, or if that was even feasible. Maybe I'll do the math sometime.
Interesting factoid: One of the reasons that there's not much commercial supersonic flight is that they fly extremely high to lessen air drag. I was taking a course in astrophysics (intro) in my last year of university, and the prof asked us if we could guess why there were no liscences being issued - and it's because at that height, a lot of the oxygen you're burning IS ozone, and the jet exhaust breakdown components are also reactive. Fun stuff.
Another interesting factoid, where I'm from, Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia Canada, had a ozone hole open up right on the top of the island a few years back, I think it was one of the lowest latitudes that this was recorded at. Whoo! :)
Possible Solution (Score:2)
we don't get to see the release of Earth 4.0.... (Score:2)
Seth
Re:ozone hole (Score:2)
this announcement is positive ammunition against the "Environmental
regulation is costly and doesn't do anything anyway" brigade; these
people have much more influence, I think. (I hope...)
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:5)
The only real way to generate electicity is to simply passively collect it eg. wind turbines...
Wind turbines require large amounts of land, pollute visually and sonically, kill birds, require large amounts of hazardous construction and maintenance labor (as opposed to nuclear fission which is relatively hazard-free) need to be located in windy places, and in the most plausible scenarios require gas turbines [ornl.gov] for back-up power when the wind isn't blowing.
(Solar cells can't provide base-load power, so they wouldn't be competing with fission or fusion, but since you brought them up...)
Solar cells require large amounts of land, pollute visually, require large amounts of hazardous construction and maintenance labor, burn 3% of their lifetime output of energy as coal when they are manufactured, and produce large amounts of chemical waste in their manufacture and decommissioning, principally but not limited to cadmium sulfide which will kill 80 people eventually per large solar power plant operation year.
BTW the burning of coal in the manufacture of solar cells is the reason solar PV plants release more radiation than nuclear power plants; i.e. the burning of coal releases radiation [ornl.gov]. It's also the reason solar PV power plants present a nuclear proliferation danger.
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
>and always has been in a state of change. Those
>who worship a particular state of ecological
>balance are very misguided
This is one of the most ignorant comments I've seen posted, and it was moderated up as "insightful"? OK, change is the only constant, I'll agree. But look at the rate of change for just one second... temperatures have risen a least a degree Fahrenheit worldwide, the ozone hole now covers 11 MILLION square miles, extinction rates are at the highest level since the dinosaurs disappeared... and anyone who worships a particular state of ecological balance is "misguided?" Uh huh. Methinks you worship a certain green substance that is fun to roll up and smoke.
Anyone who ignores their responsibility to take care of what they've been given -- in this case a habitable planet that has evolved out of billions of years -- is lazy and misguided, but someone who does it while attempting to support themselves with scientific arguments is downright dangerous.
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:3)
Perhaps you meant nuclear fission? Since no fusion power plant has ever been designed, much less built, I don't see how it can be a solution. Assuming you meant fission, I agree that it's a wonderful alternative, and actually what many people don't realize is that if one were somehow to collect all the radioactive particles expelled from a coal plant over the course of a year, it would be more massive than the amount of radioactive waste produced by a fission plant. Unfortunately, since the fission waste is concentrated, it can't be dealt with quite as easily.
I don't agree, however, that there is only one solution. Solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, fuel cell and even natural gas are all environmentally friendly sources of power, and in the end who knows which will finally have a breakthrough which could make it competitive with fossil fuel? (sooner or later, something WILL become competitive with fossil fuel, if for no other reason than eventually fossil fuels will become scarce enough that prices are driven up naturally, in the same manner that OPEC artificially keeps prices up now)
Re:Americans (Score:2)
Really? I've heard of other papers that are considered to be the oldest, such as the London Gazette, Berrow's Worcester Journal, and Lloyd's List. Guess it comes down to how you define a "newspaper"...
--
never deplete the ozone.. (Score:2)
First we produce CFC's to eat the ozone.. everyone knows this (sic). Well ozone is produced by the conversion of O2 with the reaction to UV light. So we build a big hole in the ozone, UV passes thru hitting the 02, converting to ozone, we continue the process till we deplete all the O2, we as species die (ya.. we need 02) well the plants start producing 02 from the Co2, and again the uv turns it to ozone.. we are all dead but we have an ozone layer..
oh.. it seems ironic that just as the patient for CFC's ran out it suddenly became banded and a new chemical formula was devise to be used a coolant.. makes you think.....
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Earth can be compared with an animal in regards to healing itself - give it a light disease, and it will eventually recover.
Give it a huge disease (or many light diseases at the same time), and it won't.
The green view is nice AND necessary, though (like everything else) it can be overdone.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
I think you're completely missing the point. Living in the Antarctic involves the use of enormous amounts of resources extracted from land in more hospitable areas of the planet. Food cannot be grown, and must be flown in. Heating is provided by gasoline, which is drilled from the ground elsewhere, and flown in. We are not adapting ourselves to the environment of the polar regions, we are simply using up our resources elsewhere in a very inefficient manner.
Of course, there's the Inuit who lived in the arctic quite sustainably and happily for many years before they were decimated by disease and cultural destruction. But they weren't concerned with Internet connections.
Re:Something I missed? (Score:2)
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/un/environme
and
http://www.junkscience.com/news/iccp.html
for more information
Re:we don't get to see the release of Earth 4.0... (Score:2)
This isn't very well thought-out. It also demonstrates the shallow insight provided on those other issues mentioned.
Any discussion of these issues is subject to gross simplification. My posts included. You're missing my point that there are far bigger issues to deal with, like what will happen when India and China ramp up their industrial processes. If we cut our CO2 and other emissions by 50%, it won't mean jack squat if China is putting out 200% of what we are now in 5 years, which is quite rightly the case, and how can you argue against them doing that to improve the quality of their lives? We did it during our industrial revolutions.
Do you REALLY want to put your life in the hands of a group of humans playing the role of mother nature?
Look around you if you live in a city. We do it all the time, we do it right now, and as population and consumption grows, we will do it on an even larger and more grand scale. I suspect you'll start seeing arcologies a la SimCity in the industrialized world that are completely self sustaining as a result of pressures brought on by transportation costs. My point is that I look to history when I think about the future, and thus my view is quite bleak.
In case you need it spoonfed: Your suggestion that humans can survive no ozone by becoming nocturnal is ignorant of our position in the food chain / ecosystem. Will the rest of the animals we eat become nocturnal? Hmm.. No vegetation. It'd be nice not to have some oxygen once in a while.
I am not as ignorant as you might think. Again, gross oversimplifications abound in my arguements and yours. I look at it from the more pessimistic side, and more people should be thinking about how to deal with ecological disasters rather than (IMHO, hopelessly) trying to prevent them. Of course not every animal will become nocturnal. Most of the species that ever existed on this planet are exinct, too. The earth 2 million years ago was vastly different than it is now; The earth will always be changing, and it's foolish to think that things will always be as they are now based on growth and consumption patterns. It sucks, yes, but life's hard.
It is in our nature to destroy ourselves. That sums up my arguements in one sentence.
Doesn't matter... (Score:2)
Actually, predicting the future on a scale like this is *really* stupid.
Re:ozone hole (Score:3)
But this will give more ammo to people like Rush Limbaugh who think that humans can't actually damage significant portions of the ozone layer anyway and that it's all volcanoes' fault.
Volcanoes do release a lot of ozone-depleting substances into the atmosphere. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo directly caused significant ozone depletion [usgs.gov]. You can argue all you want that "natural" CFCs are water soluable, but look at what happened! Volcanic clouds were observed to have depleted ozone. This is documented fact.
Also, don't dismiss the impact of other factors (i.e. solar wind, political agendas, the Almighty Dollar) [rense.com] on ozone depletion, or the lack thereof.
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
The ozone "hole" is really a "hole" in that there is a very steep gradient "edge" to it, this gradient in density is enormously steeper than the gradient inside the hole. Are you also going to claim that there is not such things as warm and cold fronts and that air temprature is uniformally distributed as well?
Although environmentalists may be too extreme at times, it always seems to me that when it gets to scientific arguments, the environmentalists seem to quote real science (plus a lot of extraneous emotion). When anti-environmentalists like you try to quote science it always seems to be pseudo-science and made-up facts. Sorry, but this does not help your position with people who used to be in the middle on this, like me (I used to think environmentalists were complete whackos).
Re:News just in! (Score:2)
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Simple fact: Humans (in industrialized nations mainly, and the U.S. primarily) are causing changes in the earth's climate. This is having a very significant effect on weather patterns and sea temperatures. We've made a damn big hole in the ozone layer and the temperature change is now killing off coral reefs. This is due to a 1 degree temperature increase over a short period of time. The temperature is expected to increase up to another 14 degrees in this century, a very dramatic increase for such a short period of geological time. This will likely cause extremely destructive weather patterns, along with melting ice caps and the resultant sea-level changes that will flood many lower areas of the world.
I could go on, but I've said enough to make my point. We, as people living in industrialized nations cannot simply deny our effect on this planet. We cannot just say that we believe that we can survive it, and to hell with those poorer people and nations that probably can't. They'll lose their land and their lives. This seems acceptable to those who claim that what we do doesn't matter. I guess they have to find some way to justify their position. Profits might be negatively impacted otherwise.
Re:Ah, but they would say that... (Score:2)
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Feeding the trolls... oh well, here's a simple analogy for you. I am going to die some day. Just because that is true does not mean it makes sense if I consume quantities of poisonous substances, thus expediting the process. Bad things have and will happen to the planet, but that is not justification for continuing things like global warming, ozone depletion, etc.
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Wow! That's two degrees per day!!
/.
Re:Ozone heretics (Score:2)
Yep, but more by accident than an active search. No it wasn't activist or political crap. Check out the guy who was awarded a Nobel prize for his ozone layer research, and read up on why it earned a Nobel prize. Can't remember his name, but that's a good enough start with today's IT at your fingertips, (though I get the impression there might be another prominent ozone scientist who won a Nobel but for a different field (not ozone related) of his work).
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:2)
But I don't understand the "nuclear proliferation danger". I doubt the coal exaust is really that much use for making nuclear weapons!
Warning. (Score:2)
--
Re:Ozone heretics (Score:2)
I am not sure where you got the idea that I disagree. My position is that I simply don't know and I am not really qualified to have a strong opinion either way.
What really bothers me is the attitude of the scientific establishment and the environmental lobby towards the dissidents. They have a valid opinion that needs to be investigated properly. Instead they are ridiculed, denied grants and instead of countering their claims their opponents often resort to personal attacks. "Everyone knows that the ozone hole is a result of CFCs" and anyone who says otherwise is therefore insane. But how come "everyone" knows that? From a sensationalist newspaper article quoting a controversial study it suddenly becomes Instant Truth - maybe because it fits the agenda of some very powerful organizations.
From my point of view, both sides are still theories that need more proof and deserve further efforts.
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Re:ozone hole (Score:2)
Environmental regulation is costly. And it's simply not fair to regulate (read: threaten people into doing what you tell them) unless
1. There's a real threat and
2. The regulations are going to be effective.
The case can (easily) be made that it's unfair anyway, but this is a good place to start.
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Yes, the rock we call Earth will still be here no matter what we do, and it will almost certainly harbor some form of life no matter what we do. But we could destroy the current ecosystem, and we certainly could destroy ourselves. It's not so much the planet (which is safe from our actions), as the planet-as-we-know-and-need it (which isn't), that we have to protect.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:A bit offtopic but... (Score:3)
To a certain extent, science did, at least in the beginning. It went something like this:
Science: Behold! I give to you refrigeration! Not only can you make hot climates comfortable, you can store and ship foods and medicinces like never before! Imagine what this will do for vaccination efforts!
Mankind: Pretty cool. But this ammonia refrigerant! It's nasty stuff. Can you give us something non-toxic and non-reactive?
Science: Behold! I give you CFCs! They're inert and nontoxic and make a great refrigerant. A miracle of Modern Science! Use them to make plastics! Use them in spray cans! A thousand and one uses!
Mankind: Great!
Time passes...
Science: Um, about those CFCs...we goofed. Turns out they aren't so inert when they float up into the upper atmosphere and get exposed to UV light. Bad things start to happen.
Businessman-kind: Dude, I've got a billion-dollar spraycan business going here. You said this stuff was a wonder-chemical. I'm not cutting my profits because you changed your mind.
Science: Dude, we're talking about major environmental damage here. Skin cancer for everyone. Maybe the total destruction of the ecosystem.
Businessman-kind: Sez you. You don't know that for sure.
Science: The only way to know 100% for sure is to wait a few decades and see what happens, by which time we'd be too fscked to fix anything. We're as sure as we can be at this point in time.
Businessman-kind: Well, our scientists disagree.
Science: Your scientists either suck or are paid off.
Businessman-kind: You're a bunch of pinko commies! Commies! Commies! We own this planet and we'll fsck it up if we want! It's our property and you want to take it away! Commies! Wah! Wah! (aside: They might be able to convince the government. Better start making continency plans...maybe we can even rack up some patents on CFC-free refrigerants. There may yet be profits to be had!)
Exunt all.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:Warning. (Score:5)
Cheers,
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Main point of my comment was to note the use of the language, and the implications of using the word "heal". Another common misuse is the phrase "fragile ecosystem." As if it could break and then we wouldn't have an ecosystem. Of course, any change would "break" the ecosystem as it exists today. By the same token, since change is inevitable, it will inevitably "break" regardless of what mankind does. Of course, it's a continuous process, constantly "breaking" and adapting, and new balances are formed constantly.
While we're on the subject of misusing the language, the very term "ozone hole" is incorrect. There is no hole, there is no place on the globe where there isn't an ozone layer. What is observed is a polar region where it is (and always has been) thinner than at the equator, and that the characterisitics of that region are changing. But the "thickness" of that region changes gradually from the immediate polar area, where it is thinnest, to the equator where it is thicker. There are no edges to the "hole", no boundaries. To say that the "hole" is a certain size is an arbitrary declaration.
Without delving into the scientific discussion, I think one should learn to see these sorts of linguistic tricks, and learn to be wary of them. Often they are used to convince you of something, and changing the language is an insidious way to manipulate public opinion. Both nazism and communism promised "freedom," but they did so by perverting the meaning of the word.
Re: (Score:2)
Chernobyl? What's that!?!?!? (Score:2)
B: The energy expended in mining and processing (which is far more intensive for uranium than for any form of traditional fossil fuel) comes in the form of fossil fuels. This resurrects the problem of global warming, which you purported to solve. Furthermore, fission is not a sustainable model (ie. we can't do it indefinitely) due to the large input required in the form of fossil fuels, so neither environmental impact nor sustainability has been addressed.
C: Chernobyl
D: Three Mile Island
E: What were you saying about fission being "one such power source" that has "little environmental impact?"
F: The inventor of the LISP programming language does not qualify as a source. He is a programmer, not a scientist, not any qualified authority on energy or sustainability.
G: If you want to contend that an accident on the scale of or larger than Chernobyl will not occur, you're a moron [greenpeace.org]. The fact of the matter is, it cannot be guaranteed that an accident or deliberate attack or earthquake or unforseen incident will not occur. Worst case scenario with solar or similar sources of power, power goes out. Worst case scenario with fission, power goes out and thousands die of massive radiation leak.
H: Remember that fission reactors are basically controlled A-bombs... even fusion is a better idea, given its far lower likelihood of massive explosions scattering radiation over FEMA's "ingestion area" of 7,500 square miles.
The question, then, is:
In light of the fact that other, cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy exist that lack even the remotest possibility of massive damage to the environment,
IS FISSION WORTH THE RISK?
---sig---
Re:No technical solution? You are misinformed. (Score:2)
I hate to flame but, people like you are the reason that we are in the shit hole situation we are in now...
No, I'd make a safe bet that the 500-1000 or so million people in the world that like warm houses, electricity, cars, and small boxes with blinky lights are much more to blame than myself individually. But you're free to have your opinion. I don't drive a moronic SUV, but I do own a sports car.
which by the way has nothing to do with the ozone other than the fact that if we have no ozone world hunger won't be a problem as THERE WON'T BE ANYONE AROUND TO EAT
Bullshit. If there's no ozone, then you just become nocturnal or you don't go outside during the day. You adapt to your changing environment (or you die). Plants love a little extra UV. Sure, lots of crops might fail, but there's technological solutions for that, too. It's just a matter of cost and engineering. (Much cheaper to grow outside!).
as much as you want to believe that in your pathetic paultry 65 year life span nothing you do or say is going to change the fact that once you are dead and gone and long turned to dust your sorry ass will have long ago turned into ozone, fertilizer and probably gotten well sun burnt on the way due to your misconception that if we hide our collective heads in the sand the world will fix it's self and all the bad will go away
Ugh, it's OK to rant my friend, I do it alot, but punctuation please.. at least make it so I can read it when I'm being flamed! heh. I don't go outside. I minimize my sun exposure. I don't think the sun is especially good for my skin's DNA. I do have every intention of making sure my 65 year (give or take) stay on this planet is a nice one, though. If there are serious environmental problems, there will become an economic incentive to gix them, and someone will rise to the challenge. If nobody gives a fuck, then yes, the planet will decay, but it's because of apathy. Apathy is evil, yes, but I call 'em like I see 'em. Not much you can do considering how many others are also planning on there enjoyable 65 year lifespans.
we hide our collective heads in the sand the world will fix it's self and all the bad will go away..
No, it won't.. but I don't concern myself with the masses who don't want to listen to logic. Fishermen bitch about mismanagement when there's no more fish. People bitch about gas prices when there's no more gas. People will bitch about global warming when their homes are under 10 feet of ocean. They'll bitch about the ozone when their kids get cancer. I'll work on developing things to deal with those demands. If you're not as bitter and jaded as me, congrats, and I hope you make a difference.
I have an extremely dim view of human nature.
I would like to end my rant and apologise to the rest of the /.ers, oh and yes I could have mod'd this one to the grave but chose to respond
Thank you for posting a shining example of why moderation doesn't work, and I suggest you read the moderation guidelines, you sorry pathetic little loser. What would you mod it as? -1, I don't agree? -1, Not politically correct? -1, I don't like you? You didn't refute my arguement in fact or substance.
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:2)
But I don't understand the "nuclear proliferation danger". I doubt the coal exaust is really that much use for making nuclear weapons!
Coal-fired power plants collect large amounts of hazardous solid waste from their combustion of coal. This solid waste contains the fissionable metals necessary to produce nuclear weapons. From the article [ornl.gov] I linked:
snip
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:2)
Not to mention that digging uranium out of the ground is hardly enviromentally friendly. (Yes, some claim enough could be cleanly and cheaply extracted from seawater, but AFAIK that's even farther from reality than practical fusion tech.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:ozone hole (Score:2)
`it doesn't do anything' argument: this announcement reports on
evidence that supports the effectiveness of environmental regulation.
It is funny that the costs of environmental regulation proposed at
Kyoto are so closely examined, but fewer people seriously question the
more costly `need' for the US to be able to fight two major offensives
in two theatres at the same time.
It is Sad... (Score:3)
but we can't curb our consumption and waste when our lives are on the line.
Sad indeed.
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Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:4)
Going to a particularly politically-correct school (which I absolutely abhor, I hear ecological arguments all the time. Get a grip, people. Humans are not creating "artificial" changes in the way the earth operates. Humans are animals, and thus natural, just like everyone else. We change our environment to suit are needs, as most animals do; and when we "create" chemicals and substances, the reality is we're just remixing what we already see. Who knows. Polyurthene may be a naturally growing tree on some other planet.
My point is, the green view is nice, but I really don't think it's necessary. Given time and a little patience, the planet is more than adequate at adjusting itself back to its center.
Re:Chernobyl? What's that!?!?!? (Score:2)
A: Given the amount of energy required to mine and process uranium from the Earth's crust, nuclear fission is actually a less efficient form of power than traditional coal-fired power plants.
Dr. Helen Caldicott [noradiation.org] says this. (For those who don't know, she's a physician, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, author, public speaker, and anti-nuclear {both of them} activist.) She says she gets the data from a Friends of the Earth Study of which she says [ntanet.net]:
The fuel for nuclear power plants is extremely power-dense and therefore requires negligible amounts of power to mine, process, transport and subsequently re-bury after it is used. This is reflected in the cost of fuel which is, in 1987 dollars,
B: The energy expended in mining and processing (which is far more intensive for uranium than for any form of traditional fossil fuel) comes in the form of fossil fuels.
Pound for pound it may be more energy intensive, but not energy unit per energy unit. Again, this is why the fossil energy input is negligible and therefore the price of fuel (per energy unit -- not per pound) is so low.
C: Chernobyl
A power plant of a design called RBMK which is intended to blow up and hurt people when operator mistakes are made. We don't use these designs in the western world, though we had one at Hanford for quite a while. It was permanently decommisioned right after Chernobyl sent us its not very subtle warning.
D: Three Mile Island
An excellent power plant (considering it's age) designed to not hurt people when operator errors are made. Witness, operator errors were made and the ECCS (emergency core cooling system) operated as per its design. No one was injured and no one came close to being injured. Thanks to Three Mile Island, newer power plants are designed with an increased emphasis on providing critical and accurate information to the operator. This is among a myriad other improvements that have been made to an already, as was stated, excellent design.
E: What were you saying about fission being "one such power source" that has "little environmental impact?"
Nuclear fission has the least environmental impact kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour of any electricity generation technology in existence.
F: The inventor of the LISP programming language does not qualify as a source. He is a programmer, not a scientist, not any qualified authority on energy or sustainability.
I find he has an amusing writing style and he provides references for his words. Quoting a scientist in the field wouldn't be any better since he might be considered a maverick by his peers, unless he put forth a convincing argument that he was merely presenting the opinions of the overwhelming majority his peers -- as Bernard L. Cohen does, complete with survey statistics.
G: If you want to contend that an accident on the scale of or larger than Chernobyl will not occur, you're a moron.
An accident far larger than Chernobyl, killing 3,500 people outright, is predicted to happen once in every 100,000 meltdowns. This is according the Dr. Norman Rasmussen (of MIT) led Reactor Safety Study who's famous final report in 1975 was titled, "WASH-1400". The advanced reactors of today are many times safer than the old reactors assumed in the study. It should be noted that 3,500 people died in an air pollution episode in 1952 in London caused by coal-fired power plants.
The fact of the matter is, it cannot be guaranteed that an accident or deliberate attack or earthquake or unforseen incident will not occur.
Yes. We can't guarantee safety, but we can guarantee that nuclear fission is calculated to be the safest form of electrical power production. In other words, we can guarantee that the odds are with you when you choose nuclear power. In fact, it can be guaranteed that it is calculated to be safer than going without power, or even anything more than minimal energy conservation -- something which turns out to be surprisingly deadly, both for humans and the environment.
Nuclear disasters can happen, but their infrequency makes nuclear power by far the safe choice. Bernard L. Cohen, from p. 286 of The Nuclear Energy Option:
Worst case scenario with solar or similar sources of power, power goes out.
Solar in any of it's forms represents substantial risk to human life. Because its "fuel" is so diffuse, the plants must be massive and therefore require massive amounts of labor to build. Construction is highly hazardous labor. Maintenance labor is similarly massive and similarly hazardous. If we're talking about PV panels, there is hazard dealing with the chemicals in the factory, dealing with the hazardous waste from that and dealing with the hazardous waste from decommissioning. Cadmium sulfide is highly toxic and 60 people will die per solar power plant year of operation because of exposure to it.
Fusion is a worse idea because it costs substantially more. This makes it substantially more dangerous. Expensiveness of electricity is quite lethal.
IS FISSION WORTH THE RISK?
Absolutely.
Pssst! Don't tell! (Score:2)
Re:This was the easy one. (Score:2)
What was true is that the trace amounts of uranium and other elements, when multiplied by the huge quantaties of coal burned, and with the rather efficient method of spewing it into the atmosphere that we used to use, produced far more radiation than most plausable nuclear power plant accidents. Environmental activists are notoriously bad at weighing relative risks! Unfortunately it sounds to me that modern pollution-control may have cut the ash so much that this rather good argument is no longer true. That old radiation is now collected at the plant in the ash, where it is no longer threating people (or not any more than the spent fuel at a nuke plant, anyway).
From your description it sounds like nuke defenders, instead of giving up on this argument, have mutated it into something that, honestly, I find a little hard to buy.
Re:Fission vs. fusion (Score:2)
But the cost of developing fusion power is tiny to the cost of breeding that much uranium (especially if you take security into account)
The cost of security is negligible.
The cost of running breeders (Advanced Light Metal Reactors {AMLRs}, in this case the General Electric design {a modular fast reactor concept consisting of three modules with a modular power of 496 megawatts each and using a break-even fuel scheme}) vs. the cost of fusion (in this case the tokomak magnetic fusion energy {MFE} Advanced Reactor Innovation and Evaluation Studies {ARIES} design studies, the ARIES-RS and Aries-ST) is 9.32 cents/kilowatt-hour for ARIES-ST, 8.74 cents/kilowatt-hour for ARIES-RS, and 5.13 cents for ALMR, all in 1999 dollars and assuming this is taking place around 2050.
This makes the cost of breeding uranium substantially lower than the cost of fusion.
These costs include capital (design and construction), O&M (operation and maintenance), fuel and decommissioning. All of these are significantly higher in the case of the ALMR except the capital category, where it is less than half. With these types of power plants, the capital cost is the cost that matters the most and fusion does very badly here, thus losing overall very badly.
Notice that the things you mentioned in your previous posts like fuel cost and decommissioning (where fusion is clearly superior) hardly make a dent in the overall cost. Decommissioning the ALMR cost 0.19 cents vs. 0.09 cents for both tyoes of fusion plant. Fuel is 0.88 cents for the ALMR vs. 0.54 and 0.38 cents respectively for the RS and ST fusion plants. Fusion saves at best half a penny per kilowatt-hour in these categories.
Source [ornl.gov]: The Oak Ridge National Laboratory report: An Assessment of the Economics of Future Electric Power Generation Options and the Implications for Fusion
Our own good (Score:3)
Natural vs. Artificial is an arbitary distinction. If we had a massive nuclear war, you could argue that it is a product of nature just as we are. But the real point is that it *would kill us all*, people, cows, bengal tigers, redwood trees and the rest. We have a choice here.
> We change our environment to suit are needs
Sometimes. Sometimes we accidentally fuck up our enviroment through ignorance and short-sighted greed. Are you seriously suggesting that the ozone hole was a deliberate change?
Who gives a flying f--- if ozone holes are natural or not. The point is that they harm us in the long term and across the whole planet. We caused them and we can stop. The green view is one that puts *our own long term good* over short-term, local gains.
> I've always argued this point, and I'm glad to see one more argument to back me up.
And how does a new calculation on the duration of ozone holes back up your "argument" that we are a part of nature?
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Actually, we didn't survive. We died in droves. We were massacred. That a pitiful few lived to populate the world doesn't mean that change is dandy and that we're up to it, No sweat - "She'll be right, mate".
We will better insure our future if we accept the inevitablity of change and adapt to it
rather than try to stop it.
Stop and think for a moment. Taking the example of global warming, just because the climate can and does change naturally, doesn't mean that changes made by us cease to exist, it means that our changes get added to the natural change, with the possible result of something far worse than can occur by nature alone.
If natural global warming can raise our climate by a few degrees, we are insane to exacerbate that change - because then we could be talking about some extremely serious shit.
The earth doesn't need us. It can change (or be changed) to it's hearts content, an asteroid could wipe us out in an instant, it matters not - it's just change. But for our quality of life, or even survival, minimising change matters a great deal.
On a related note, I'm currently living in the south island of New Zealand, and the sun here (on the outskirts of the ozone hole) is Not Fun to be in.
Re:Something I missed? (Score:2)
I've long had a problem with understanding how northern hemisphere emmissions
could cause anything but a northern hemisphere problem.
The CFC's on their own don't do anywhere near as much damage as they do when they set up their reactive camp on the surface of an ice crystal. The atmosphere above Antartica has a lot more ice crystals high up in the atmosphere, and so the global pollution hits there first and hardest.
(Allready you can start to see that there are many seperately measurable elements, such that theoretical predictions can be made, reliably tested, and confirmed well beyond the vague guesses that the industrial lobby likes to pretend is the case).
Re:Something I missed? (Score:2)
for more information
Wake up man. "Junk Science" is a corporate front, mainly for disseminating propaganda. Its backers and funding reads like a "who's who" of the worst polluting and environmentally distructive industries. And its history gets a hell of a lot more sordid than that.
Don't be a sucker - always check your sources.
(It's not like Junk Science is even subtle propaganda - it's so flimsy and unbalanced that it only works on people who really want to believe it.)
And if it didn't instantly set your warning bells ringing, checking out the so-called citizens "group" that runs the site should have confirmed that you were dealing with something very dodgy.
I'm not putting forward an opinion on your patent conspiracy theory, I'm just saying that citing Junk Science to support your theory is like citing White Supremacy literature as supporting evidence for a theory that the Holocaust never happened
Re:Ozone heretics (Score:2)
Correction: The industrial lobby in the USA is so powerful that it can portray even things like Kyoto as anti-American when they are so blatently not.
Can you believe it - Europe says "We want cuts of 12% for all developed nations" (eg including Europe), the USA says "F*ck off - that's enough that we'd have to convince people that efficient engines were Good and SUV's were Bad. Screw that, we'll just tell them that Europe was being anti-American! - you can't be much more anti-American than opposing gas-guzzling cars".
Seriously though, these causes are not anti-American - they require everyone to make changes, and the USA is copping a lot of flak for being so unwilling to do anything. While this does make it easier for interest groups to portray things as anit-American, the reality is that there is nothing of the sort - the only thing anti-American is the ill will that the USA generates by its own actions with it's repeated refusal to change even half as much as everyone else is already prepared to do.
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:2)
Re:Ozone heretics (Score:2)
Ozone for some reason just isn't GETTING to the South Pole.
The bottom line is that while CFC's may be bad, and they may harm Ozone in general, our use of them most likely contributed little to nothing of the decline or proposed recovery of the ozone.
The bottom line is that you haven't read up on ozone research
That the hole is in the south pole rather than above developed areas precisely confirms that it is man made, because (this summary is oversimplified almost to the point of falsehood) it coincides exactly with the atmospheric conditions required for non-naturally occuring ozone depleting chemicals to shift into top gear and really get stuck into the ozone. And when those conditions change, the ozone hole changes with them, which poses something of a problem for the head-in-the-sand idea that non-manmade forces are the big players.
Re:ozone hole (Score:2)
The point made by the poster seemed to be that Rush Limbaugh thinks the problems are ONLY caused by volcanos. Which is patently ridiculous.
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More crap to try and justify some jobs. (Score:2)
Re:No technical solution? You are misinformed. (Score:2)
Africa that haven't effectively gone through an industrial revolution and don't have that luxury. I'm not going to get high and mighty when they
start burning billions of tonnes of coal to do what we did at the end of the 18th century.
There are also poor third world nations which will be wiped off the face of the earth by predicted sea level rises. Understandably, they would like someone who is able to be all high and mighty about it, to get high and mighty
This is meant to be an observation rather than a flame: your post gives the impression of being a rationalisation aimed primarily at relieving of you of a need to do anything, by providing a (somewhat flimsy IMHO) justification no to.
Re:No technical solution? You are misinformed. (Score:2)
Market forces are worse than useless here. The west is hugely insulated from the effects of environmental damage. It's the third world that takes the heat. By the time there is a significant economic incentive, it's be either far, far too late, or far far too expensive, to stop the kind of loss of quality of life that is already occuring in some parts of the third world.
Still, I plan to have enough money to be well and truly insulated
Ozone heretics (Score:3)
Ozone is created by sunlight. Sunlight is abundant near the equator where light hits the atmosphere at higher angles and that's where most of the ozone is created. Ozone coverage above the pole depends on whether there are enough jet streams to get it from the equator to the poles. The ozone heretics claim that a well-known priodic weather phenomenon over the south pole creates a pocket of air that doesn't interact much with the rest of the atmosphere and that is the real reason for the hole. This pocket is occasionally broken up by atmospheric turbulence and fresh ozone gets to the pole.
Even if the ozone heretics are correct and all the environmental scientists and world governments are deluded perhaps this is still a Good Thing: it's the first time that people realize that their actions have global consequences and that they can actually make a difference by changing their behaviour. If global warming is real (and there are enough scientists who claim it isnt...) people could point to the ozone example and show that "it worked".
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Re:ozone layer (Score:2)
This is depressing. No, the evidence isn't secret, and it's extremely compelling. Just because someone doesn't hand it to you on a silver platter doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it means that if you want an educated opinion, you've got to do your homework.
Admittedly, it doesn't seem easy to find (I stumbled across most of my info by accident), but armchair skepticism is no better than armchair blind faith. Get your hands dirty.
:-)
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:5)
I've always argued this point, and I'm glad to see one more argument to back me up. Given time, the earth gradually heals itself, and even adjusts to human intervention and polution.
Professor O'Neill's point was that ozone levels are being "reduced by concerted action," not by the earth correcting itself. I agree that the earth does act the way you describe to some extent, for example, in response to the growing ozone hole the number of instances of skin cancer has increased, how ever deaths due to skin cancer clearly has not adjusted the amount of polution produced to the effect the the ozone hole is being closed, nor has anything else the earth has done.
As the article states, global cooperation has been by far the greatest factor in helping fix the problem. From 1987 to the present the United States, the 12 nations that were then members of the European Union, and Japan have cut their annual output of ozone depletion potential tonnes (ODP tonnes) from 725,000 to 6,800. Thats over a 99% reduction among major nations.
While the earth is certianly resilient, the total apathy you suggest would clearly lead to a more rapid destruction of the world we live in.
- John McDowell
Re:The guy who discovered the ozone even stated th (Score:2)
If, like me, you are currently living under it, a "healthy" hole, much like a "healthy" dose of gamma radiation, is one that is "as small as bloody possible!".
The sun is nasty here...
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:5)
During the thousand milenninia or so that man has inhabited the planet, it has warmed and cooled, oceans have risen and fallen, mountain ranges have grown, continents have drifted apart and collided, ozone layers have thinned and thickened. The relatively minor changes that get everybody in a tizzy nowadays are nothing compared to what we have already survived. And we survived those changes with... well, with Stone Age technology.
Furthermore, as time passes and technoloigy advances, our ability to adapt to change grows exponentially. Man now lives in more different environments than virtually any other creature. We live in polar cold, in sweltering tropical heat, in deserts and in forests and on Himalayan mountains. And most of those places have running water and Internet connections. If we were not so able to adapt ourselves to the environment, then we would never have survived as long as we have.
There is no "healthy" state for the earth, it is and always has been in a state of change. Those who worship a particular state of ecological balance are very misguided. Change is the only constant. We will better insure our future if we accept the inevitablity of change and adapt to it rather than try to stop it.
Re:Site kills my netscape (Score:2)
This was the easy one. (Score:5)
Re:Something I missed? (Score:2)
Then we try something else. I never understood the position that because it wasn't 100% proven that something harmed the environment, then we should ignore it. As is 95% wasn't sure enough. Or 50%.
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Re:A refreshing change (Score:2)
I think that that there is a philosophical reason behind this. The reason that you don't hear about the environment getting better is that most environmentalists take the state of the environment as it was in some undefined past as the good state and every other state is a departure from that.
So when the environment is defined negativly, by being the opposite of whatever is happening, then, the only good news you can hear about the environment is that things won't be going quite as badly as they were. After all, it is quite impossible for the environment to get better then it was in it's pristine state.
Just some of my late night philosophical babbling...
Re:Big news: Earth corrects itself (Score:4)
Desertification in Africa? Destruction of Rainforest which exacerbates the situation?
If you claim that there's no 'healthy' state for the planet you're wrong. Climate has always shifted but within a balance, I don't think any ecologist would claim to aim for some kind of stasis, some utopian ideal, but would claim that if we disturb the balance too much the planet may not reciver before we wipe ourselves out. Change isn't constant - first it changes one way, then it changes back again.
To claim that we can adapt to cope with any collapse of the global systems is extremely vain - we cannot. We are too widespread to survive. We survive day to day. Many of us do anyway. I'm not one of them - I have a very comfortable life, as you probably do and as do most of the /. readership. But I do have a responsibility no to consign others to death because of my greed and selfishness.
As I said (more implied actually!) in my other post in this thread: To deny our responsibility for our effect on the earth is selfish.
Yes, but (Score:2)
I agree with your hatred of "political correctness" (I go to an Ivy league school which will go unnamed, except to say that Ralph Nader *shudder* spoke here last night), and I agree that the planet tends to move towards some kind of equilibrium.
Unfortunately, the planet (and of course by "the planet" I am referring to all the myriad species which inhabit it) can only react so fast, and the balance that is eventually reached may or may not bear any resemblance to the equilibrium of 500 years ago, and may or may not be inhabitable to humans. Natural beings are perfectly capable of rendering their habitats uninhabitable, and it is a danger we humans run all the time. Bacteria do it all the time, by killing their hosts. "Natural" does not mean "bullet-proof." :)
Re:A bit offtopic but... (Score:2)
It really annoys me when people blame the effects of some craze in rampant consumerism on science.
Science doesn't actually do anything much, unless someone markets and sell products (this includes weapons etc. even though it's often not technically selling) based on bits of it.
Re:A refreshing change (Score:2)
That makes sense, I like it.
What I want to know is, why should we bother? Let nature happen, let mankind pollute, see what happens.
~Tim
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