NSR- Scary Report on sea Ice levels

[Blatant]

The sky is falling.........

[watersnowdirt]

[QUOTE=BlurredElevens]You're right. If we see it being an urgent problem, we should do something about it. However, there are about a million problems higher on the list to worry about right now than global warming. We can't spend life worrying about everything./QUOTE]

Some people do see it as urgent, Blurred, and so they're addressing it as they see fit. Just because you don't, doesn't mean they shouldn't.

That's a bit of a cop out that people have always used: "They are more important issues - go work on those." That, coming from people who are usually doing nothing about any of societies problems. I work on environmental issues. Some of my friends work on cures for cancer. Others work on women's issues. Other work on human rights. For each of us, we've picked something that we view as pressing and we do what we can. As a result, shit gets done that you probably aren't even aware of that makes life better for those affected communities.

[Tippster]

-Nobody is disputing (any more - credibly) that Global Warming is real
-Nobody is really disputing that we humans at the least lent a helping hand through various means: Deforestation, domestication of cattle, and hydrocarbon emissions (in order of impact severity)

The problem isn't that here's a (potential) problem - it's that the proposed solutions so far are either impossible to implement or pure science fiction. The Kyoto Protocol did nothing for LOWERING Carbon emissions - they fixed them at a steady level. What they did do was penalize Industrialized Nations (North America, Western Europe) and benefit developing Nations (China, India.)

No Bona Fide enviro-scientist in the world ever claimed that implementation of the protocol would even slow Global Warming, much less reverse it. It was purely a "we gotta do SOMETHING" knee-jerk reaction to this phenomenon.

Why should my society suffer so that India or China can take over? That's not equitable. Keep in mind - during the Kyoto talks China was a net EXPORTER of oil. Now a mere 7 years later they're the 4th largest IMPORTER.

[runethechamp]

-Nobody is disputing (any more - credibly) that Global Warming is real
-Nobody is really disputing that we humans at the least lent a helping hand through various means: Deforestation, domestication of cattle, and hydrocarbon emissions (in order of impact severity)

I'm pretty sure deforestation has a VERY minor effect on greenhouse gases, at least if we're talking about the fact that trees absorb CO2. Not that deforestation is a good thing...

[uglymoney]

Why should my society suffer so that India or China can take over? That's not equitable. Keep in mind - during the Kyoto talks China was a net EXPORTER of oil. Now a mere 7 years later they're the 4th largest IMPORTER.

Honestly, I don't suffer because my house is 100% flourescently lit. I don't suffer because of the extra insulation I have in my walls, attic, and the high efficiency air conditioner and furnace that heat and cool my home, or by the fact that my computer shuts down when I walk away from it. I don't suffer driving a four cylinder car, vs something larger, and I love my new E-tec outboard which runs cleanly and exists entirely because of clean air regulations, the thing is sweet. I wish it was practical for me to do more.

There are so many pain free steps that we can take, we just have to accept the science, and then take the steps. Why not leave China, India, and other polluters in the dust with a country that is cleaner, prettier, healthier, has industry and citizens that run on clean energy and even thrive on the development of that technology.

Why let neo conservatives convince us that to do anything will destroy our economy. Its pure nonsense, and the truth lies somewhere in between those who want everyone to walk barefoot and naked with tulips in our ears, and those who think blowing gasoline out our dicks somehow keeps us a step ahead of China.

[PNWbrit]

Interesting article about urbanisation of China in the Guardian today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...731061,00.html

China now has 90 cities with population over one million. (There are nine in the U.S.)

[Blurred]

Clever confusion of hair spray CFCs with smoke aerosols, followed by standard attempt to discredit, in hopes of transferring authority to self. Yawn.

Read up, come back, try again.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm#s1

Core Shot - you're giving away too much. The warming is real (past, present and predictable for the future) and the cause is known.

glad to see you have it all figured out david. the scientific community is patiently waiting for your arrival.

[MassLiberal]

So, moving beyond the question of if climate change is a threat, What are some feasible options to reduce it's impact? What worries me is that in the past, minor shifts in atmospheric conditions have created cataclysmic events (such as ice ages), so what are our options? Do we just cross our fingers and pray? Telling lowland and Island nations that they are fucked, but thanks for playing?

Or do we as a nation decide that as the world's largest producer of Carbon emmissions we lead the way into developing new technologies which deal with the problem, therefore diversifying our economy (instead of holding on to expiring industries), ensuring our future and once again becoming a legitimate leader of the world?

[runethechamp]

I thought the CFCs were mostly fucking up the ozone layer, but that's still bad.

[summit]

The scientists don't even know what's going on. Their recent finding is that tropical deforestation may be actually decreasing methane levels in the atmosphere, and that plants are responsible for up to 30 percent of the methane in the Earths atmosphere.

Got any sources?

[Tippster]

Honestly, I don't suffer because my house is 100% flourescently lit. I don't suffer because of the extra insulation I have in my walls, attic, and the high efficiency air conditioner and furnace that heat and cool my home, or by the fact that my computer shuts down when I walk away from it. I don't suffer driving a four cylinder car, vs something larger, and I love my new E-tec outboard which runs cleanly and exists entirely because of clean air regulations, the thing is sweet. I wish it was practical for me to do more...

If you can afford to make these changes then by all means, do so. I have spent nearly $15k on new windows to lower my heating bills. HOWEVER - I heat my house with Natural Gas, not electricity, so it's a non-issue as far as Kyoto goes. You do realize that not one of the items you mentioned was an issue, even a sidebar, to the Kyoto Protocol. Their main concern was Industrial Pollution. Sure reducing your energy intake would help (somewhat) but what would help much more would be building new NUCLEAR powerplants to replace the existing coal burning ones.

A couple more items directed at the thread as a whole, not you specifically:

Deforestation not only removes one of the better ways of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but adds to it since most of those trees are - BURNED.

CO2 is not the primary Greenhouse gas. Water Vapor, Ammonia and Methane are the most "efficient" of those. Mt. Pinatubo did more damage Global Warming wise in a week than all the automobiles in the US did since Henry Ford.

My 9 year old 4 cyl Audi uses as much Gasoline as a current 6 cyl. car, ~22mpg. So I, and all other drivers in my situation globally, should be forced to spend $20-30K just so the Chinese can pollute as much as they like?

[cj001f]

So I, and all other drivers in my situation globally, should be forced to spend $20-30K just so the Chinese can pollute as much as they like?

Tell them they should stop heating their homes in the winter.

[PNWbrit]

Got any sources?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-gw-011806.php

"In a recent study (Nature, 12 January 2006), scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland, UK, revealed that plants produce the greenhouse gas methane. First estimates indicated that this could account for a significant proportion of methane in the atmosphere. There has been extended media coverage of this work with unfortunately, in many instances, a misinterpretation of the findings. Furthermore, the discovery led to intense speculations on the potential relevance of the findings for reforestation programs in the framework of the Kyoto protocol. These issues need to be put in the right perspective.
The most frequent misinterpretation we find in the media is that emissions of methane from plants are responsible for global warming. As those emissions from plants are a natural source, they have existed long before man's influence started to impact upon the composition of the atmosphere. It is the anthropogenic emissions which are responsible for the well-documented increasing atmospheric concentrations of methane since pre-industrial times. Emissions from plants thus contribute to the natural greenhouse effect and not to the recent temperature increase known as "global warming". Even if land use practices have altered plant methane emissions, which we did not demonstrate, this would also count as an anthropogenic source, and the plants themselves cannot be deemed responsible.

Furthermore, our discovery led to intense speculation that methane emissions by plants could diminish or even outweigh the carbon storage effect of reforestation programs with important implications for the Kyoto protocol, where such programs are to be used in national carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction strategies. We first stress that our findings are preliminary with regard to the methane emission strength. Emissions most certainly depend on plant type and environmental conditions and more experiments are certainly necessary to quantify the process under natural conditions. As a first rough estimate of the order of magnitude we have taken the global average methane emissions as representative to provide a rough estimate of its potential effect on climate. These estimates (for details, see below) show that methane emissions by plants may slightly diminish the effect of reforestation programs. However, the climatic benefits gained through carbon sequestration by reforestation far exceed the relatively small negative effect, which may reduce the carbon uptake effect by up to 4 per cent. Thus, the potential for reduction of global warming by planting trees is most definitely positive. The fundamental problem still remaining is the global large-scale anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels. "

and

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=236

[rideit]

So you're saying the only reason for global warming is man. Gotcha.

It's a moot point.

[summit]

Some (not all) of the websites out there that are trying to discredit global warming are backed by:
1. Industry Lobby afraid of money costs of emission control
or
2. Fundimentalist Christians who really don't care for the idea that Global Warming relies on evidence going back more than 6000 years. That's blasphemy, therefor create controversy about the theroy.

Science is rarely 100% certain and there is always internal disagreement on the details. However, the question is "How sure do you want to be before taking action?" Some people seem to be advocating the plan: Wait 100 years and we'll find out who is right when we are either fucked or we aren't.

[MassLiberal]

unfortunately, I think that one of the keys to turning climate change into an important issue lies with christians. They need to be convinced that this is a moral issue (destroying god's creation, our planet), If they begin to turn, we might be able to make serious progress in tackling this problem.

[uglymoney]

I Sure reducing your energy intake would help (somewhat) but what would help much more would be building new NUCLEAR powerplants to replace the existing coal burning ones.

I'm a proponent of nuclear power. If the stuff that I buy going forward is all regulated into being as efficient as is practically possible (open for debate), the US economy will as a whole gain, and energy savings would be dramatic.

My 9 year old 4 cyl Audi uses as much Gasoline as a current 6 cyl. car, ~22mpg. So I, and all other drivers in my situation globally, should be forced to spend $20-30K just so the Chinese can pollute as much as they like?

Fuck China. If they want to continue to run an economy that is wasteful, dirty, and destroy their country and our air thats there choice, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can to make it a bad choice. If we want to continue to run an economy that is wasteful, its quickly going to become our problem, because the rest of the world is going to run away from us and our innefficiencies, and they will do what they can to punish us for our bad choices.

Eventually your Audi will wear out. I'd like to see regulations that make it easier or wiser for you to replace it with a vehicle that efficiently serves your needs.

Stop thinking in terms of left vs. right, start thinking in terms of right vs. wrong, smart vs. stupid. A working solution will be one that uses the savings from gained efficiency to pay for the cost of those changes.

[Blurred]

This subject is so difficult because there are so many different sources saying many different things. The information we have now is very contrary to what scientists believed 10 years ago. We've only had accurate temperature monitoring for roughly 150 years. It is a proven fact that greenhouse gases released by man through the burning of fossil fuels, and the release of methane gas can and does have a warming effect on the Earths planet. I've heard conflicting reports on the actions of CO2.
http://www.carleton.ca/Museum/scienc.../patterson.wav

It's difficult for us to know how much of an effect man has had on the temperature when you throw in natural global climate variations, fluctuation in the suns energy, wobbles in the Earths axis, fluctuating aerosol levels, methane levels variating from everything under the sun including deforestation and the flatulents of billions of living creatures. There are so many different variables that keep changing, and new findings are still being made. Some scientists believe that the average temps could be up by 10 degrees in the next 100 years, having disastrous results. Some scientists even predict another ice age in the next few thousand years, and think that global warming may be a good thing to prolong it.

What I see for the future is human manipulation of the atmosphere, resulting in climate control. Even if the burning of fossil fuels stopped today, the gases we've already put in the atmosphere will be warming the planet for a long time to come, so that doesn't seem like much of a solution.

[Blurred]

Next time just head over here, they've already done the dumpster diving for you.

Your copy and pasting of url's is really getting old. Do a search on your post history, you do that like 50% of the time. Your Google skills are awesome. Give yourself a hand Squawman.

[char]

So, therefore it is pointless to do anything about it, and should terminate any law which restricts the ability of industry to burn Carbon?

And quoting a Bill Bryson book isn't exactly credible.

Uh, I'm not arguing against your position.

I'm saying that we shouldn't be putting a bunch of greenhouse gases into the air in what is essentially a huge, uncontrolled "experiment" at this point to see what happens. Because it's not smart.

What we do today to restrict carbon emissions will not have much effect for approximately 100 years, so we need to think on a larger time scale.

And then I posted a link to the international body which produces reports on this sort of thing. Maybe you should read them. These reports largely support your position.

As for restricting industrial emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases? Brilliant idea, but you aren't ever going to accomplish the targets in developing economies without telling poor people that they need to continue to live in poverty. That or you need to get developed countries to take on part of developing countries reductions. And as you can see from this thread, not too many here seem willing to do that.

[seatpostclamp]

[Cono Este]

Uh, I'm not arguing against your position.

your position.

As for restricting industrial emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases? Brilliant idea, but you aren't ever going to accomplish the targets in developing economies without telling poor people that they need to continue to live in poverty. That or you need to get developed countries to take on part of developing countries reductions. And as you can see from this thread, not too many here seem willing to do that.

Well said. fkna right.

[MassLiberal]

Uh, I'm not arguing against your position.

I'm saying that we shouldn't be putting a bunch of greenhouse gases into the air in what is essentially a huge, uncontrolled "experiment" at this point to see what happens. Because it's not smart.

What we do today to restrict carbon emissions will not have much effect for approximately 100 years, so we need to think on a larger time scale.

And then I posted a link to the international body which produces reports on this sort of thing. Maybe you should read them. These reports largely support your position.

As for restricting industrial emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases? Brilliant idea, but you aren't ever going to accomplish the targets in developing economies without telling poor people that they need to continue to live in poverty. That or you need to get developed countries to take on part of developing countries reductions. And as you can see from this thread, not too many here seem willing to do that.

Well, from the way you used the quote, it wasn't really clear which direction you were going with the argument.

As for telling impoverished nations that they need to remain poor: are you kidding? The united states has been doing that since its creation, whether it be through the Monroe Doctrine or the Third World face-offs during the cold war, we have never really desired that the undeveloped world make steady advances. In fact, it has worked to our advantage as we extorted raw materials from Latin America in order to indutrialize them and sell them back to the world.

[Core Shot]

Interesting article about urbanisation of China in the Guardian today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...731061,00.html

China now has 90 cities with population over one million. (There are nine in the U.S.)

Good Read.

Here's the relevant part for this thread:

China's development is one of humanity's worst environmental disasters.
Cheap coal and a doubling of car ownership every five years has made the country the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
According to the World Bank, 16 of the planet's 20 dirtiest cities are in China, and Chongqing is one of the worst.
Every year, the choking atmosphere is responsible for thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis.
Last year, the air quality failed to reach level 2, the government health standard, one day in every four.
Today's haze is so thick that I still haven't seen the sun.

Chongqing is trying to clean up, but this is a low priority compared to economic growth. And it is hard to find a place for the ever-expanding waste. We head into the hills to see the biggest of the mega-city's rubbish mega-pits: the Changshengqiao landfill site. It is an awesome sight; a giant reservoir of garbage, more than 30 metres deep and stretching over 350,000 square metres.

The waste engineer, Wang Yukun, tells me the city produces 3,500 tonnes of junk every day. None of it is recycled. Some is burned. Here, it is layered like lasagne: six metres of rubbish, half a metre of earth, a chemical treatment and then a huge black sheet of high density polyethylene lining. The site opened in 2003 and it already contains more than a million tonnes of rubbish.

[Cono Este]

Well, from the way you used the quote, it wasn't really clear which direction you were going with the argument.

As for telling impoverished nations that they need to remain poor: are you kidding? The united states has been doing that since its creation, whether it be through the Monroe Doctrine or the Third World face-offs during the cold war, we have never really desired that the undeveloped world make steady advances. In fact, it has worked to our advantage as we extorted raw materials from Latin America in order to indutrialize them and sell them back to the world.

Dude, the poor in those countries have their own ruling elite to supress them, it is not always 100% our fault.

And he absolutely right. We all had a chance to exploit out natural resources, before we started to impose these restrictions on ourselves and others. Developing nations are simply doing what we did 50-100 yrs ago. China will not stop, nor will many others. I do not see anybody offering them something in return.