Humanity Responsible For Current Climate Change 775
tehanu writes "Scientists working with Antarctic ice have found that the level of greenhouse gases is at the highest level in over half a million years. Carbon dioxide is 27% higher now than any other time over the last 650 000 years. Methane, an even stronger greenhouse gas is 130% higher. The period of time studied covers eight full glacial cycles including a time when the earth's position relative to the sun is the same as it is today. Other scientists have found that the annual rate at which the sea has risen since the industrial revolution is twice that of over the last 5000 years. It is predicted that by 2100 the sea level will be 40cm higher. These results provide strong evidence that human activity since the industrial revolution, rather than just natural processes, has strongly altered the world's climate. As one of the scientists involved in the research put it: 'The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years.'"
No! God did it! (Score:5, Funny)
Any rise in temperature must be part of the Grand Design.
Don't sweat it! (e.g. shit happens.)
Re:No! God did it! (Score:2)
Re:No! God did it! (Score:4, Informative)
Artic land rush...... now you know what the plan is.
Antarctic land rush. The artic pole will be nothing but a chilly sea if the ice melts. Hardly any land mass up there to speak of. Antarctica has a continental landmass underneath it's cap.
Re:No! God did it! (Score:4, Informative)
There is a lot of land north of the Arctic circle, 99% of it is unpopulated. Arctic != 100% ice
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a proponent of HUGE tax increases on gasoline. Push it up to the $6 level. People won't stop driving until it really hurts to do it.
We really need to do something about cutting down on emissions. This is a serious problem, and our society is just moving further and futher towards making it worse.
Look at the electronics industry- look at our computers, and how much energy
Re:No! God did it! (Score:5, Insightful)
And besides, we're going to run out of oil in the next 100 years anyway, and the earth will balance itself out and go back to equilibrium, and everyone will be happy (except for the oil companaies).
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Informative)
If I had a job with a ~100km round-trip, already owned a car and gasoline prices mysteriously tripled overnight, I would most likely do as you said and still keep driving - I wouldn't want
I am baffled (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are concerned about the poor, the situation can be handled with a fuel credit equal to the average value that people put in each year. For example, a typical person driving 12k miles per year at 20 mpg uses 600 gallons. Let's say we implement a $1/gallon tax, but give a $600 tax rebate. This is approximately tax neutral, but slams gas hogs and rewards those are frugal. It encourages everyone, rich and poor alike, to conserve. It also does not harm the poor. as most will find a way to come out ahead, and the gas hogs who don't are SOL.
A gasoline tax is quite close to economically efficient, and fairly taxes everyone in direct proportion to the problem they create. It is both fair and effective. Arbitrary regulations and cut-offs, such as you suggest, are neither.
Re:No! God did it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. I can accept that. What I can't accept is the whine about gas prises, from people who drive cars that aren't really economic. I mean with 10 MPG or there abouts, you have no right to complain
Invest in a more economic car, that goes 50 MPG or more.
For the record, I pay around USD $5.70 per gallon. And yes, I do whine about it too. Car prises in Denmark are insane though, so I can't afford to switch cars (mine only gets around 32 MPG)...
Re:No! God did it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I checked there was only one car for sale in the US that got better than 50MPG: the Honda Insight, which is rated for a max of 2 people. That SUV (which gets closer to 20mpg, though I agree that is bad) will haul 6 people. Divide it out, and a per person when full. The SUV can also haul around a lot more cargo, which is handy from time to time.
So if you need to haul a load even once in a while, haul a family once in a while, or need 4 wheel drive once in a while; the question is can you justify the second car as well. I did the math - it pays for me, but I drive 100 miles/day, and then I only can justify it for a cheap used car, not a new car. When my commute was half that it didn't pay.
There are a couple cars that get in the 40mpg, but not many. There are laws of physics that make it really hard to get that high, without compromises that most people do not wish to make.
My solution to high gas prices is to mi 50/50 ethanol/gas in my cars (My cars don't run right with more ethanol than that).
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Informative)
There are a couple cars that get in the 40mpg, but not many. There are laws of physics that make it really hard to get that high, without compromises that most people do not wish to make.
VW was getting over 50 mpg way back in the '70s with the Rabbit Diesel. Today they've got the Lupo 3 that gets over 80 mpg. Even the Passat TDI got 41 mpg while it was for sale in the US. A hybrid like the Honda Accord could easily get over 40 mpg (it already gets 37 on the highway), if they didn't feel the need
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:College grads working @McD's chose the wrong ma (Score:4, Interesting)
I dunno man, I think we are a poorer society without our philosophers. I was looking back at the archives at my uni, and they had old records from philosophers., that families used to sit around the phonogram and listen to. I suspect we'd be a lot more thoughtful society if people still revered philosophers like they used to.
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Insightful)
The current savings rate should be in the list of indicators, and it's either still negative or zero. I don't care who you are, but if you spend all or more than your income (especially if you borrow to do it!),
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anybody realize that there are other vehicles on the road besides people going to work and picking up their kids from school?
The last gas price hike experiment was a failure because it hurt businesses, especially small businesses that provide local goods and services.
So, with a $6/gallon gas price, not only
Egads! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you might need to think this reactionary tax through just a scosh more, follow the economic food chains around. And speaking of actual food chains, I live and work on a farm, you raise the fuel prices to triple what they are now, well get ready for 12$ chickens and 3$ a piece corn on the cob and 6$ loaves of bread at your local urban store. And because the costs of energy are closely related, how about tripling your winter heating bills now? When one fuel goes up in price, they ALL do basically.
I think a better idea is what we are doing now, people switching to hybrids or the coming soon plug in hybrids, adding solar to their roofs, large wind generational projects going in, research into clean coal burning technologies, and etc.
and..just for grins..
See? It's big problem, it's not all just cars and finger pointing. That just gets the finger pointed right back at ya.. That crap with cars is sorting itself out just fine now, people may be dumb but they aren't so dumb as to not notice fluctuations at the pump with mostly UP as the range and the general rise of "other" fuel prices like in their natgas bills and propane and whatnot. People ARE switching to better mileage and cleaner burning cars. check the stats, hybrids are the fastest growing market. And an SUV made it into the top 5 mileage vehicles sold in the US this year, the Escape hybrid. Clunky as it is and slow, the system is starting to work. We are talking overcoming inertial with 300 million people in the US and a lot of entrenched industries. This stuff takes time and a lot of individual effort as well as corporate effort and governmental incentives. . And the track record of governments passing laws and RAISING taxes to try and fix stuff is just mostly pure dismal. People fix stuff when it is practical, logical and do-able to do the fix and not much sooner. That's just how it works.
We are a mobile society, we sunk our infrastructure bucks into roads designed for personal vehicles and trucks as the primary method of travel, and it just isn't practical to have full public transport that goes everywhere, it would cost dozens of trillions of dollars just to get started on it and even then it would never fit all situations..
Want to make
Re:Egads! (Score:3, Interesting)
We are neck deep in ideologues, and when I use that term, I mean the mass of humanity that has totally and completely abandoned critical thinking and reason in favor of myth, lies and ignorance. Instead of analyzing a particular situation for a solution, they run and check whatever manifesto they follow. It's a "one size fits all" playboo
Re:No! God did it! (Score:5, Interesting)
And when gas is that expensive...people FIND other ways to get around. You do it by necessity.
American's won't change until this happens.
Re:No! God did it! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true that particularly Germany has a higher population density than the US, and a decent public transport system. However, I wouldn't say people use public transport to save money -- a modern car would cost less in fuel, despite the high prices we have here. It's just that it's a comfortable way to travel if you want to go from city to city, i.e. if you're lucky enough to have a good connection to where you want to go. Some read a book, some work (or play) on their laptops. You can't do that while you drive. Public transport for shorter distances has the advantage that you don't need to find a parking space. For those who use it to get to work on a daily bases there are monthly tickets that make it affordable, and in some cities it has the advantage that special bus lanes go past the rush hour traffic jams. But as with trains, it depends on your personal situation whether it is a good option or not. Depending on where you live and where and when you want to go you might have to change (potentially crowded) busses, walk to the neares bus station in the rain, and so on. So, it really depends, and doesn't necessarily save you any money if you have a car anyway (however, it makes it possible to live without one, depending on personal circumstances).
No, the main effect the higher prices really have isn't that people drive less or buy less cars (Germany even has more [whitman.edu] cars per capita than the US), but that consumers buy more efficient cars. Germans drive more than they used to, but use less fuel -- the average new car is down to 30mpg (link [umweltbundesamt.de] in German, sorry).
I just read somewhere that 47% of new cars bought in western Europe have diesel engines, they use roughly 40% less fuel for the same power. Modern diesel engines don't have the disadvantages you might associate with them, i.e. they're not noisy, they accelerate quickly and so on. There are filters for particles.
So, my conclusion is that instead of whining about high fuel prices (which aren't that high at all, compared to what it costs elsewhere), Americans should simply buy more efficient cars. I can understand that some people need cars to get around for their job, that they're needed for travel and all that, no problem. It's just that, personally, I'd buy an efficient car if I was in that situation, no matter what fuel costs. You don't even have to buy an expensive hybrid, modern diesels come pretty close.
Re:No! God did it! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No! God did it! (Score:3, Funny)
Nothing to see here (Score:2, Funny)
Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
So, as Penn & Teller put it in their Bullshit! episode on the matter, we're still gathering data. So stop jumping to conclusions!
Links (Score:2, Insightful)
I was discussing the global warming issue just last Tuesday with someone who was very adamant that humans are responsible for everything. As I offered more and more opposing evidence suggesting that there is no definitive proof that mankind is responsible, he grew more and more emotional until he told me "attitudes like yours are why the planet is going to hell" and wouldn't discuss it further. Unfortun
Re:Links (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Links (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, other sites suggest that water vapor accounts for much less of the greenhouse effect, 60% according to these folks [espere.net], and the Wikipedia offers anywhere from 36% to 70% [wikipedia.org].
Re:Links (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Links (Score:5, Interesting)
Are humans responsible for everything when it comes to Global Warming or the greenhouse effect? Of course not, don't be silly. And nobody who actually has a clue but is concerned about the issue claims that. The claim is that humans are responsible for a significant deviation in the expected natural lavels of global warming via the greenhouse effect.
As I offered more and more opposing evidence suggesting that there is no definitive proof that mankind is responsible
There isn't any "definitive proof" that humans are responsible for significant deviations in factors affecting global climate. Just like there isn't any "definitive proof" that evolution is correct, or that dark matter exists. What there is, is a weight of evidence toward the degree of impact of human factors that puts the burden of proof pretty squarely on those claiming humans are not responsible.
What do we know? We know that in the past 200 years humans have produced large volumes of carbon dioxide and methane through various industrial processes. We now know that current levels of carbon dioxide and methane are the highest they've been for over 650,000 years. We know that global temperature correlates extremely closely with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over a range of 650,000 years. We know that atmospheric carbon dioxide traps heat, and can cause global warming. We know that there has been an acceleration in the rate or rise of global temperatures (beyond what would be expected coming out of the "little ice age" 400 years ago) that is apparently unprecendented for the last 2000 years or so.
Are humans solely responsible for the current warming trend? No, we're coming out of small dip in global climate, so there was some warming anyway. You'll also find that solar variation accounts for around 30% or the observed warming (or at least that's what the IPCC reports claim), and other natural cycles are responsible for some as well. The fact remains that humans have produced a lot of carbon dioxide and methane in the last 200 years, that those gases do cause warming, and that the levels of those gases are unprecendented to the last 650,000 years. Humans are providing a significant forcing compared to natural fluctuations, it would be surprising if that didn't have an impact.
Jedidiah.
Re:Links (Score:4, Insightful)
Ewww, that's just another "folk science" website. It essentially puts together some numbers and lulls people into judging them with their gut and not with their brain.
Or to put it in another way: It's irrelevant wether your gut thinks that man-made amounts of CO2 are too small to affect the climate. That's now the way you do science. In science you use the brain and not the gut. Fact is that during thousands of years rises in CO2-concentration were followed by rises in temperature. Fact is that in the last decades rises in CO2-concentration were followed by rises in temperature.
Fact is also that man puts lots of CO2 into the atmosphere while reducing the vegetation that absorbs CO2.
You say: "I offered more and more opposing evidence" but you don't post any. All the anti-global-warming websites are just like anti-evolution websites: They attack some details, come up with outdated or just plain wrong numbers and most importantly they don't offer any explanation at all.
Essentially the anti-global-warming position is that it's just a coincidence that we have the highest CO2-concentration and highest temperatures in hundreds of thousands of years. Which is no explanation at all. To say that some cycle that "we don't understand" is responsible is just like saying that God did it (like the anti-evolutionists) or that it's just a coincidence that the highest temperatures fall in the period of the industrial revolution. The anti-global-warming people provide exactly zero evidence for their "cycle"-theory, their whole theory is based on belief, not fact - and wishful thinking (that we don't have to change anything) of course.
On top of all that the most stupid point of all is: The "We don't understand it perfectly, so let's just do what we want" - argument. Sane people would say that you have to be extra-careful if you don't understand what concequences your actions have. Only a complete moron thinks that lack of understanding is a reason to mess even more with things.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Informative)
One could argue (and there are scientists who do) that the global mean temperature should be influenced by the 11-year solar cycle. The magnitude of this variation is not the same from cycle to cycle, and d
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, you just made the argument against the conclusions of the study. The argument for humans causing global warming goes something like this:
- The temperature is higher now than it's been in x years of records. (X here is usually in about 1000 years of measurements, though there's arguments about a few periods in there where it might have been warmer.)
- The greenhouse gases are higher now that they've been in Y years. (Y = 650,000 years from this study.)
- Humans have been creating a lot of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution started a couple of hundred years ago.
- Aha! We must be causing it.
That 30 years is insignificant over these time scales also means that 200 years or so is insignificant as well, which is the entire argument about us causing global warming. You can't claim 200 years is significant and 30 isn't whenn compared to these time-scales.
There are many missing pieces from the argument so far to keep it from being a solid argument of some sort:
(1) What is the time-correlation of the greenhouse gases. Fine, they're higher now than any time in the last 650,000 years. Did they keep within some normal fluctuations until about 200 years ago and then steeply climb, or did they start climbing 200,000 years ago, and are slowly leveling off? What's the pattern? If it's the former, one could correlate it to the industrial revolution and us. (Not necessarily causation, but higher correlation is more convincing.) If it's the latter, it essentially removes any use of the study as an argument for humans being the cause since we didn't produce greenhouse gases 200,000 years ago. This is highly important to the argument.
For instance, when I moved away to university, I was taller than I had been in my previous 18 years. Therefore, university causes growth spurts. If I suddenly grew tall right after moving, perhaps it's true(but not necessarily). If I grew taller over years and was leveling off when I moved, it has nothing to do with it. The correlation over time with events is the most important part of the argument and we don't have it for gases.
(2) We do have some of the correlation over time with events for temperature, and there is a rough correlation of temp with increased greenhouse gases, but not a firm one and there are correlations with other things (such as increased solar activity). If human-produced greenhouse gasses are the cause, what happened in the 30 years from 1940 to 1970. We can't claim to understand the causation of climate change over 200 years but can't understand causation over 30 years. Either we understand what affects climate or we don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
(3) How can such a small fraction of greenhouse gases, as produced by humans in comparison to naturally occuring, cause such large changes? Why is the climate so much more sensitive to these small amounts?
There are probably more missing pieces. Incidently, I actually do believe that humans are having a bad effect on climate. I hate SUV's, waste, inefficiency, and so on. However, I also have a firm understanding of deductive reasoning and the scientific method and can't throw that out just because I believe something is true. The argument for human causation is so full of holes right now it isn't convincing. That doesn't make it wrong or that we shouldn't be trying to be more efficient and less polluting; but there's either insufficient evidence yet for the argument or it's not being presented properly.
No gradual increase (Score:5, Informative)
Correlation between gases and temperature (Score:3, Informative)
From one of the research papers (deltaD is what they use to measure temperature BTW):
The coupling of CO2 and {delta}D is strong. The overall correlation between CO2 data and Antarctic temperature during the time period of 390 to 650 kyr B.P. is r2 = 0.71. Taking into account only the period 430 to 650 kyr B.P., where amplitudes of deuterium and CO2 are smaller, the correlation is r2 = 0.57. Corrections for changes in the temperature and {delta}D of the water vapor source, which also affect {delta}D of th
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
the nowadays accepted interpreation [is] that the cooling was largely caused by sulphate aerosols [realclimate.org]
Those particulates that the clean air act got rid of in the 80's and 90's, caused cooling up to the 70's. They also caused smog, acid rain, lots of health problems etc. so it's a good thing we got rid of them. But the aerosols masked the warming trend for a while. Pretty well understood in the models.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Human contributions are small relative to the natural cycles (biology, oceans, volcanoes), but enough to put things out of balance. That's what the fuss is all about. Without any greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, Earth's average temperature would be about -20 degrees C, so there's obviously a major natural greenhouse effect. We're providing an artificial perturbation that has recently amounted to enough to be noticeable, and will contin
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
It's usually considered good form to cite the quote, so we can see who said it and what evidence they had for the claim. As it is, the power of google comes to the rescue and I find the original source for your above quote is Wikipedia::Global_warming_controversy which in turn links to Monte Hieb's personal website [geocraft.com].
Well, that's OK, a personal website isn't necessarily a bad source of information. We shouldn't be concerned that Mr Hieb has no education in climatology, isn't a scientist nor a doctor, doesn't have any peer reviewed papers, doesn't do research nor experiments, and isn't cited by anybody except the enthusiastic gunslingers of the "global warming is a myth" brigade. All of those details are irrelevant if Mr Hieb gets his facts right. Unfortunately he hasn't got his facts right either. If you google his name the first hit is somebody ripping apart Mr Hieb's claims. You immediately find out that Mr Hieb redefines existing scientific terminology. Tut tut, that's not a good sign.
That page goes on further to refute the "facts" asserted by Monte Hieb. Somebody once tried to get Mr Hieb's claims into other pages on Wikipedia but those attempts were ... uhhh... rejected. Here's a comment that accompanied one such rejection.
That 95% figure (which is intrinsically linked to your 0.27% figure) isn't supported by the data. The best guess figures are between 60% and 70%. If you continue to google Mr Hieb's name you'll find that pattern repeated over and over; Mr Hieb uses incorrect values, redefines terminology and eventually arrives at incorrect conclusions. But who is Monte Hieb?
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Guilty vs. Innocent -- Minimizing Disaster (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of guilty until proven innocent is to default to the least injurious assumption. In crime, that means that we default to the one that doesn't ruin a man's life and that keeps the investigation of a crime going. In global warming, we should default to avoiding disaster.
Remember, if global warming people are right and we don't listen to them, the worst that can happen is a disaster that will take centuries to reverse and will lead to widespread famine from desert
Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an interesting turn of events...
When the evidence was less than conclusive about either global warming in general or our role in it in particular, the administration roundly decried it, calling global warming a 'myth' and a 'fantasy'.
When the evidence was conclusive about global warming in general, but inconclusive about our role in it, the administration switched to "well...perhaps it is real, but it's surely just a natural phenomenon...we can't be more than marginally responsible".
And now that the evidence about both global warming in general and our role in it in particular is conclusive, the line will now be "oh well...water under the bridge. There's nothing we can do about it now".
In other words...business in usual. It might be a good idea to sell that beachfront property and start shopping for property further north...particularly since you'll be hunting for your own food when the climate shift causes worldwide food shortages.
Re:Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:2)
OK, what do we do now?
Sign up and adhere to Kyoto? Will China be interested in throttling down their energy use?
Let's see some ideas.
Re:Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:2)
Spin control and lots of it.
Okay, I'm out of ideas.
Re:Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
"Scientific" studies are supposed to be criticised, repeated, disproven...and then when all else fails...accepted.
Re:Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. It's essential for scientific ideas to be challenged by the scientific community. On the other hand, what's happening here is the scientific community's consensus being challenged by the political community, which is insane.
Re:Consensus (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not. However, the consensus of the scientific community tends to be the best guess available on scientific issues from information available at the time.
Climate models are only useful if they can predict the future accurately. When they fail to predict the future accurately, they aren't useful. When they're falsified the parameters are changed, and the process starts over again. Pretending that they are correct when they don't pe
Re:Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:3, Insightful)
That isn't a very good example -- in that case, only the experts who predicted the presence of WMDs were "taken at face value". The other experts who expressed doubts were either ignored, suppressed, or told to re-evalutate their conclusions until they did come up with the desired answers.
I guess the moral of the story is, if you want correct answers, keep politics out of science.
Re:Meet the new boss...same as the old boss (Score:3, Interesting)
I heard an interesting story on NPR [npr.org] this afternoon about a village in Alaska that is being threatened by storms. Historically the village was safe because by this time of year the ocean near the shore had frozen. In recent years (past decade?) the oecan is not freezing before the severe storms hit. As a result, the erosion is removing the sand that the village is settled on. The general trend appears to
Re:Food shortages? Don't be silly (Score:3, Interesting)
I've looked into it. I know what could happen.
Look harder. The soil in the permafrost is very poor because most of the good stuff was scraped by glaciers down into the prairies. With significantly less rainfall, those prairies could be heading for another dustbowl (you've heard of the 1930's, no?). Generally, the most productive soil for farming is in temperate zones and as the temperature rises, rainfall in those areas will decrease (on average) and so will crop returns. A
Solar Activiity is at its highest levels since (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be nice if all the reports about the environment didn't carry the chicken little byline.
Re:Solar Activiity is at its highest levels since (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Solar Activiity is at its highest levels since (Score:5, Informative)
You're a bit off on your timescales. The southern icecap on Mars is melting because it is spring there:
From NASA [nasa.gov]:
Like Earth, Mars has seasons that cause its polar caps to wax and wane. "It's late spring at the south pole of Mars," says planetary scientist Dave Smith of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "The polar cap is receding because the springtime sun is shining on it."
Similarly, the warming on Pluto is also apparently seasonal (though its seasons are long, of course). From Space.com:
Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years, indicating a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is likely a seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual orbit.
When scientists worry about global warming on earth, they're not just griping about the arrival of spring!
Although there's the 'duh' factor, nice research (Score:2, Flamebait)
It proves that unless you're interested in murdering subsequent generations, we need to start now to get energy that doesn't smut-up the atmosphere, our lungs, and forestry/ag plans that don't cut the lungs out of the earth so that someone can have cute cabinets in Miami.
Unfortunately, a little more natural drama (maybe a few d
Devil's Advocate position (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, I usually run Firefox, but happened to open this up in Internet Exploder - all three URL's in the article had popups - you forget about those things when you predominantly use Firefox.
P.S. I'm argueably contributing to global warming with my 20,000+ Christmas lights [komar.org] ... although at least I signed up for wind power.
Bad news? (Score:3, Funny)
Awesome. That's 40 cm less I have to drive to get to the beach.
Re:Bad news? (Score:2)
Re:Bad news? (Score:2)
Even in the darkest hours, there is yet hope..... (Score:4, Interesting)
We just need a Apollo program level of devotion to it .
University of Wisconsin has a working 3HE reactor, he fuel is just the issue, the moon is the answer.
Helium-3 on the moon, and the new finding of altering Hydrogen atoms molecular
orbits in a manner unknown before and pointing to fundamental errors in physics/Calculus .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,16
Keep in mind he has had some peer review on this before chucking it on the bone pile .
The Algae that makes enormous amounts of oil for biodiesel and other uses also
gives as a short term methodolgy vs. drilling for oil . It also burns cleaner .
* Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (40 to 50 m/km)
* Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 140 m/km)
* Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130 m/km)
* Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160 m/km)
* Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (610 m/km) [2]
* Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (10,000 to 20,000 m/km)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel [wikipedia.org]
There is yet Hope, but stray a little and you will fail to the ruin of us all - LOTR
Ex-MislTech
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Even in the darkest hours, there is yet hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though this number shows up on Wikipedia (and its 1000 spam clones), I looked at some of the references and could not find where they claimed this number. Since it is 20,000%-50,000% (fifty thousand percent) more efficient than soybean oil, why would the latter even be considered for a second? Are we saying I could set aside 1/10 acre of my yard (the size of a garden) and produce 1000-2000 gallons of fuel a year?? That might provide all
How about this? (Score:4, Informative)
However, it's not as simple as that; the technology hasn't been developed to actually farm the stuff on a commercial scale, but there are people working on that. The first test deployments are by these guys [greenfuelonline.com], who are using the exhaust systems from conventionally-fired power to provide nutrients for the algae and prevent the release of CO2 and NOx into the atmosphere.
But yes, in the future you might well be able to grow all the fuel for your car in your backyard.
Wow. It's plausible. (Score:3, Informative)
Peak solar power at sea level [wikipedia.org] is 1 kW/m^2. Let's make the totally unrealistic assumption that the sun shines at peak brightness for an average of eight hours a day, no clouds or anything. That makes 28.8 MJ of solar input energy per day.
Huh. I'm rather stunned.
More specifically. (Score:3, Informative)
So, the algae has to be around 13.3% efficient to get an energy yield of 10,000 gallons of diesel per acre. I have no idea if that efficiency is plausible or not.
Up by Fargo, Global Warming can't come too soon! (Score:3, Funny)
(In other news, sell any property you own near sea level.)
Re:Up by Fargo, Global Warming can't come too soon (Score:2)
Change in the climate stresses every biological creature, and whe
Re:Up by Fargo, Global Warming can't come too soon (Score:3, Funny)
Stop spreading FUD, do something productive (Score:2, Interesting)
There is too many reports citing scientists on global warming doom and gloom and next to nothing being published about our progress in using hydrogen as the source of energy. It almost makes you want to say "Sceintists, stop with the global warming stuff, start working on the renewable energy already!".
The reason? Doom is sensational - and guess what the news outlets will publish first?
Bigger picture (Score:5, Funny)
Carbon dioxide is 27% higher now than any other time over the last 650 000 years.
But the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Maybe the C02 level rises every million years or so, each time life evolves into things that make internal combustion engines. Then it falls for a while after each thermonuclear war.
A graph [v2.nl] of the last 3 million years?
Possible. (Score:3, Insightful)
The situation is further complicated by the fact that we're coming to the end of an interglacial period - the last Ice Age technically didn't finish, and will be back for more. Su
So, (Score:3, Insightful)
So what were those lousy smegheads doing to the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago? Stupid cavemen and their earth-raping!
Still don't understand (Score:2)
Re:Still don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
who's to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)
If indeed human activity is causing global warming, then we can solve this problem inteligently or stupidly. The intelligent solution starts with nuclear power. The stupid solution is to give up our mobility and regress to third world living conditions.
If you oppose nuclear power, please educate yourself [russp.us].
Re:who's to blame? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is those concerned with "saving" the enviornment that frighten me the most, for they are the ones most willing to recklessly change the status quo using the trendy science of the decade. We still don't know shit about the climate cycles of this planet and what we do know is hindered by all sorts of complexity. The systems interaction alone is enough to make me doubtful of anyone's claims of understanding this spinning rock.
And if climate change does occur on a
Re:who's to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)
Irony (Score:5, Funny)
What I find ironic is how often people who don't trust the fossil fuel industry, and claim not to believe anything they say, etc. have been taken in by the anti-nuclear FUD spread by the very people they claim to distrust.
It's like some bad comedy routine.
Joe Public: I don't trust you.
Coal and Oil guy: I can understand that.
Joe Public: Nothing you can say will make me trust you.
Coal and Oil guy: I know just how you feel.
Joe Public: You do?
Coal and Oil guy: Sure. See that guy standing over there? The one with the pocket protector?
Joe Public: What, Nuclear Guy? Sure, I see him.
Coal and Oil guy: I don't trust him at all.
Joe Public: Why not?
Coal and Oil guy: He wants to kill all our babies and make giant insects and stuff.
Joe Public: Really?
Coal and Oil guy: Really. And he wants to make stuff that will kill people a bazillion years from now if they so much as think about it. That's why I don't trust him.
Joe Public: Wow. Thanks for the warning. But this isn't going to make me trust you any more than I did before.
Coal and Oil guy: I can understand that. Just so long as you don't trust him either.
Joe Public: Or don't worry about that. That guy is scary!
--MarkusQ
Re:Irony (Score:3, Informative)
Three Mile Island is estimated to kill exactly one person.
Wikipedia has one Chernobyl estimate with 4,000 predicted
Re:who's to blame? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the intelligent solution is to tax carbon and let individuals figure out the best way to get emissions back in line. Fission power seems like the obvious choice on a simple analysis, but economic considerations (like insurance costs and waste disposal costs) make it a much more dubious proposition over the long haul.
The fact is that we don't know
Re:who's to blame? (Score:3, Insightful)
The governments of the world could not care less about the environment. It's known as "the tragedy of the commons". Even if people were afraid (as they are) of nuclear power, their governments would not care and build nuclear power anyway.
The reason why no one builds more plants is that nuclear power in anti-economical. It simply costs too much. Its production costs once online for fuel and such are low, but the investments and fixed costs (security and safety procedures, for instance) are gigantic. Invens
Why is it so hard to believe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does it seem to some that humans can not bring about climate change? Our population keeps swelling, we keep burning fossil fuels and chopping down trees. Do you think we are unable to produce enough greenhouse gases? Is nature so vast and giant that humans seem to dwindle in strength? We humans are a part of nature. Locusts can devour forests. Why can't us humans ravage the earth?
Re:Why is it so hard to believe? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not. Therein lies the rub. Even if it the evidence is flimsy its not hard to believe. We can look at how much we waste, how much power we personally consume, and how much we have changed the world from how it was and think, "how could I not be responsible for destroying the Earth?" When the basic thought is so simple, but the true understanding is so complex, I think that we tend towards acceptance without burdening our limited understanding with actual proof.
There are so many, many studies on it. Are they right? Could be so, but I've yet to see any direct proof, nor working (practically testable) models that demonstrate the principal. Without that, I always have my doubts - especially in the face of so much extrapolation.
Of course, the converse is also true. I've yet to see any working models that demonstrate that we're not causing global warming. However, I'm holding the default view of "I don't know, and until I do I won't use the idea in any decision I make," which in this case is generally a ruling in favor of the idea that we're not responsible.
It should be noted that I might be totally wrong here. I don't have an opinion on the veracity of any theory of cosmic origins or of evolution (or creationism), or even on the current "theory of everything" models for precisely the same reason - lack of a tested model and an abundance of extrapolation. I've noticed a lot of
I'm open to suggestions, of course. Why should I lower my standard of what constitutes reasonable proof to weigh evidence in favor of one view over another?
Re:Why is it so hard to believe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because that would involve a moral obligation to change our ways. If, instead, you had said that human activity caused climate change on a distant, ininhabitted asteroid, you'd have little problem getting people to accept it.
steve
SpaceBalls (Score:3, Funny)
2. Start putting Air into neat little cans, with 2 nostril holes
3. Call your new product 'Perri-Air'
4. !?!
5. PROFIT!!
27% of ALL CO2 not 0.27% (Score:5, Informative)
- humans only contribute 1% of the CO2.
- hence a 27% increase is a 0.27% increase
This is NOT what the studies show. It is 27% higher than ANY CO2 level in the past 650 000 years. This includes BOTH natural processes and man-made processes. It does not distinguish between the two sources. I've seen their graph. There is a nice cycle with greenhouses gases, and temperature with temperature slightly lagging behind C02 levels. This is the natural cycle that people talk a lot of. Who knows what causes it. Then suddenly, in recent times, the cycle is destroyed and there is a sudden upsurge in C02 levels near present times. It is very clearly anonomalous.
Don't forget the 1% is someone's guess about how much mankind contributes.
This reminds me of a certain speech... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well we don't want the smoking gun to be beachfront property in Utah. Even now, those same cretins who claim no proof of global warming, are thinking up ways to spin a fast buck from the disappearing arctic ice caps.
Hell, for all we know, maybe all the excess CO2 is coming from right wingers chanting denial.
If you're really interested (Score:4, Informative)
The usual climate propaganda. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good -- treat this as investment advice (Score:2, Funny)
1. Buy land a few feet above sea level
2. Steady the course, environomentally
3. Sell ocean front real-estate in 30 years
4. PROFIT!
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
And neither did Clinton. Oh, and no one on either side of Congress voted for it, either. Sorry for this temporary insertion of non-slanted facts. You can resume your regular misinformed spin now.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Clinton didn't sign it, either. Thankfully, neither one could sign it without the Senate's approval.
You had it coming, suckers!
Uh, excuse me, but who's running more and more Diesel engines [typepad.com]? You're not exactly complying with Kyoto either, and you did sign it.
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
who's running more and more Diesel engines?
It's impossible to tell from the article. However if you limit it to just 1992 to 2002 then it's not Ireland; but it is Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Belgium and Germany. The telling part is that there's no mention of the US or the whole of Europe in the article itself. The statistics are also three years too early to have a bearing on the effectiveness of the Kyoto protocol (this came into force in 2005).
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/miller.
I discount his science because he's as fundy for gaia as some are for god. Global warming has become a religion and no longer counts as science.
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:2, Troll)
It's all part of the lifecycle. Stop worrying about it. If it's not Global Warming it'll be volcanos, nuclear holocaust, mass dise
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:3, Funny)
After you, pal.
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Earth will not lose the ability to support life. Even all out USSR USA nucular war would not remove the ability to support life, as cockroaches would still be around...
What you are worried about is significant change in the balance. We already have that. Think about the change in world population in the last 1000 years, from millions to billions. That is disruptive, as we are not currently self-sustaining.
You want to lock us in to one point in time and make sure nobody is hurting too bad. Guess wha
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Sense" is neither one view or the other. If we develop ways to produce and consume energy that do not pollute the environment, the debate on whether global warming is caused by humans would be completely irrelevant.
What bothers me is the folks who cannot accept that the answer is somewhere in between, it has to be a total disaster scenario or complete denial.
Of the two news items that read "So and so has almost positively proven the cause of global warming" or "So and so has developed a way to reduce co2 emissions by 2.76%" - which one is more sensational, which one qualifies as "front page"? Which sceintist will get more funding and publicity - the one behind the former story or the latter? Yet which of has contributed more to society? That's problem with us people, hype-driven beings...
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't matter how much evidence is found. (Score:3, Informative)
To the moderator's that moderated the above comment "interesting", be aware that the 0.27% figure is fabricated. The same figure was rejected by Wikipedia as it was deemed "junk science". The source of the figure is a mining engineer's personal website (Monte Hieb) rather than a scientific journal or paper.
Re:Only two data points - sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I Dont Care Anymore (Score:3, Funny)
I, for one, do NOT welcome our new blattarian overlords.
That said, if they end up being half as dumb as humans, they'll probably mass-produce Raid for military purposes.
0.004% of human body is iron (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Greenhouse (Score:3, Interesting)