Riddle me this!
Just how many Ribbons of black and grey can you drape over a green landscape before the green is no longer effective?
Roads, Freeways, Highways, By-ways, anyways you slice it, it can't be good for Mother Earth.
All those black lines, stretched out across the landscape, tearing entire Eco systems in half,
Just so you can get there from here...
You guys are the devil...
You should all have your cars smashed into tiny squares, and then stack them into giant pyramids in some remote jungle...
You should all have your cars smashed into tiny squares, and then stack them into giant pyramids in some remote jungle...
Sorry, current International Deforestation Treaties do not allow for the stacking of cars smashed into tiny squares in to geometric shapes in remote jungle areas. If Greenpeace isn't looking, you may be able to dump the off the coast of New Jersey. If they give you trouble, just call them "artificial reef materials".
You should all have your cars smashed into tiny squares, and then stack them into giant pyramids in some remote jungle...
Do you realize how many potential jobs were created in that sentence?
Car crushing, Road building, Pyramid construction.. Sounds like Commerce to me!
And if the super economy boost isn't enough, The Pyramids could then be turned into gathering places for 'Sporting' events...
It seems the only thing left to do in our civilization is sacrifice humans atop these giant car square pyramids..
That should solve this ....human co2 plague... i mean the bpa, mercury, chlorine, FLUoride, arsenic, and many other things being put into the food and water aren't working fast enough and most of that just gets released into the environment in the form of pee, poop, and most of all cremation.
(but hey, co2 is the biggest worry they can come up with because it has the added benefit of restricting humans, if we stopped putting all that Smile into the humans consumption, they might reproduce faster, or figure out some other technological solution to global warming, and then what will we use as an excuse to restrict them?)
It's really sad what I'm about to relay, and no I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here.
I'm not trying to be ageist. I value experience and respect those that have it.
Just pointing out what I see about the topic...
I just see in my immediate circle the majority of older engineers and a lot of retirees very vocally saying that Global Warming (Global Climate Change) is a complete fallacy.
Global Warming cause by human actions even more ludicrous.
But actually, they're completely right, but only from their own personal perspective.
Just because global warming has no chance of affecting them, doesn't mean that it won't start to have a detrimental effect on what would be their grandchildren or great-grandchildren's future lives.
A concept of, "well it isn't true for me" and "even if I'm wrong and future generations do blame me, it doesn't matter because I'll be long-dead".
They simply have no stake in the endgame.
Basically this is how the thinking behind fiat currency and fractional reserve currency works as well: Works great for a handful of generations, until the inevitable effects of requiring constant growth and new loans to cover the old loans' compounding interest surface. Works great until the interest owed becomes provably impossible for all the collateral in the entire world to cover the quadrillion bajillion dollars the balance due geometrically grows to. Then the statement is made, "well, can you come up with a better system?" And I say no, but I can at least see what is not optimal about the present system for those people futher and further into the future, and how optimal it is for those near the beginning.
It's about perspective. Who benefits from sticking to what opinion.
@Mark T
Thanks for clearing that up. When you consider how much of our future will be vested in producing more electrical power for cooling devices to often the global warming, it is good to know that with the right means for energy production and transportation there is a way out of this.
....
I'm not trying to be ageist. I value experience and respect those that have it....
I just see in my immediate circle the majority of older engineers and a lot of retirees very vocally saying that Global Warming (Global Climate Change) is a complete fallacy.....
I'm one of those old fart engineers and I have no doubt that we humans have an exponentially growing impact on the environment. However, I see the ignore-ance of Global Climate Change as being merely the tip of a greater iceberg, so to speak. I think Phil Pilgrim hit the iceberg on the head when he said that we suffer from the general problem of anti-intellectualism. Our entire global society seems to suffer from it. As I see it, it's not that "intellectuals" don't have their biases and don't make egregious mistakes, it's that we, as a society, don't have enough intelligence in the general populace to make our own critical evaluations of the studies which those "intellectuals" hand down to society. In the US, the attempted solution to that problem seems to be the "Common Core," which is a set of guidelines for educating the next generation, a set of educational goals that are intended to make the next generation much more capable of making informed rational decisions. Generally speaking, I applaud those goals and I respect the principles of democracy that those goals are set up to help support. Problem is, the implementation of that Common Core is, in some places, turning out to be an educational catastrophe. Why? Because the same imbeciles who are victims of a previously bad educational system are making today's decisions about how to implement the changes society needs to make sense of reality, moving forward. In my local area, for example, implementation of this so-called solution to our educational problems has become a tragic, Potemkin-village-like, Catch-22 kind of travesty. Administrators have made moves to eradicate classes aimed at more advanced kids, claiming that the new curriculum will eliminate the need for advanced classwork. Meanwhile, on top of that, we've now got federal laws that require public schools to allow students with mental illnesses to be "mainstreamed" into the same classrooms with kids without mental illnesses. The result is that teachers are trying to implement a brand new educational curriculum aimed at the next century while a fraction of the classroom is suffering from anxious outbursts, hallucinations, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, you name it. I think if we truly valued the fruits of intelligence, then we, as a society, would never even think of doing such a thing to our kids and teachers. The reality is that we, as a species, apparently care more about people kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals than we do about anything else (with the possible exception of making more copies of ourselves to do exactly the same thing that was done before).
It appears that the solution to Global Climate Change, as well as all our other problems, is to get really, really, really good at kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals.
About those gold fish. Was there some experimenting going on with gold fish and acid here?
Oh yes. I was tipping sulfuric acid into the fishtank. But but... bear with me here. Prior to that I noticed the fish were a bit unwell, so I tested the pH with my nifty electronic pH probe and found it was too alkali in the fishtank. So I was correcting the pH back to where it should be.
Easy to do with a fish tank and with a swimming pool. Not so sure about the ocean though. My great fear is that global warming *isn't* happening, because most of the CO2 we are making is dissolving in the oceans, and we are not noticing the pH falling because of buffers in the ocean (I put buffers in my pool and my fishtank too). But buffers can't stabilise pH forever - I remember the experiments we did at school. When the buffer overloads, then the oceans become acidic and all the shellfish shells will dissolve.
Re solar hot water in Finland, yes, that may not work. But intriguingly, solar electric panels actually are more efficient when they are cold. Does Europe have a grid yet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid
Then you could make your electricity in North Africa, Spain etc.
Australia is building this sort of thing too. All states except Western Australia are on a single grid. It is possible to store energy with pumped hydro, which gets very efficient at the large scale. South Australia now makes over 20% of its electricity from wind turbines, with more coming online over the next few years. Meanwhile, a bushfire got into one of Australia's coal mines and made living in the nearby towns very unpleasant for a month http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/morwell-coalmine-fire-finally-extinguished-after-45-days
It seems to me this is not a political problem. Solar, wind etc makes sense because it has got a lot cheaper. Ten years ago, solar was $10 a watt. I picked up my panels for 54c a watt, and that was without any government subsidy.
There are so many smart solutions we could be doing. For instance, where I live we don't have much natural rainfall. So we either have to pump from the Murray River, which nearly went dry a few years ago, or we get water from desalination. Both pumping and desalination can be run when you have wind or sun. Store the water you make in reservoirs. Ditto storing heat and coldness in water.
Global warming and all that stuff used to make me depressed. But not since I saw my meter running backwards (made $12 worth of electricity today exported to the grid - after all my family's energy needs were met). And yes, now it is dark and I am drawing back from the grid but lightbulbs, TVs and computers don't use much - a few kwh at most in the evenings - and more and more that energy is coming from large wind turbines.
The mistrust of science in some quarters -- especially in the U.S. -- is alarming. Belief too often trumps evidence, to the ultimate detriment of science-based policy.
I think Phil Pilgrim hit the iceberg on the head when he said that we suffer from the general problem of anti-intellectualism. Our entire global society seems to suffer from it. As I see it, it's not that "intellectuals" don't have their biases and don't make egregious mistakes, it's that we, as a society, don't have enough intelligence in the general populace to make our own critical evaluations of the studies which those "intellectuals" hand down to society. In the US,
Another +1
It sure seems like some media organizations have gone to great lengths to distort what is reported in scientific journals. While some of the distortion is intentional I think there's also a lot bad reporting because the journalists don't have enough of a science background to understand the journals they are reporting on. And now that we have the internet, the number of under,educated "journalists" has exploded.
I grew up in the Midwest, where there was -- and maybe still is -- a strong current of anti-intellectualism.That's not to impugn everyone who lives in certain areas, just that it was noticeable where I lived, even to my young mind. That's also not to say that some global-warming adherents aren't just as belief-driven as global-warming deniers.
Using terms like "cretin" and "Deniers" bespeaks an air of contempt and a deep-rooted desire to shut down any debate.
There's no current against "intellectualism".
It's skepticism - it's the resistance of the free to having their lives turned over to a control elite, (be they degreed, self-appointed, or otherwise.)
It appears that the solution to Global Climate Change, as well as all our other problems, is to get really, really, really good at kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals.
One of my favorite DIY schemes is off-the-grid solar ice making and off-the-grid solar cooling.
So far, there is some solar cooling for commercial use in larger buildings. We actual have a major Japanese firm that produces the heat exchange units in Pingdong, Taiwan.
But the off-the-grid aspect would help the people that are in most dire need of help now - Aussies, India, and Africans.
It may not not be for everyone. It may require ammonia gas as coolant or a lot of other eco-challenging coolant. But even limited deployment to bush hospitals and community refuges would help a lot.
I can understand changing the fish tank ph, but wonder if the added sulphur is going to create a problem. After all, there are a lot of other acids that might be better.
It is extremely difficult to prove a direct link between cause and effect. The best that can be done is proof by circumstancial evidence.
In some circles the burden of evidence needed to show a link exist is ridiculously high. Take the Creationism versus Evolution debate for example.
...apparently care more about people kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals
Oddly enough the Greek civilization is often admired for it's intellectual pursuits and is considered by many to be the seat of civilization as we know it, however they were also obsessed with physical fitness. They did start the Olympic Games after all. They believed in the "Healthy body, healthy mind" idea.
How we got divided into "jocks" and "geeks" I don't know.
Dr_A,
Do we have a grid? Sure we do. Electricity is traded all around Europe.
Places like Helsinki tend to be very efficient. All that waste heat from power stations is not vented to the atmosphere with huge cooling towers like it is in England. No it's piped all around the city as super heated steam to provide heat for the apartment buildings. Pretty much for free.
Up in the forests of Northern Europe solar power is actually a big thing. You see there are a lot of summer cottages up there. Often off grid, but if you are there in the summer the days are long. Why not use solar power.
Solar power is very big in Germany. I was amazed at how many roof tops I saw covered in panels whilst travelling around last summer.
Denmark is really into wind turbines. They are everywhere. Someone told me they were getting up to 60% of their electricity from wind power.
In Spain the is a lot of solar work going on. Huge reflectors focusing light to drive Strirling Engines. Or to melt salt which stores energy as heat until it us used at night. Interesting stuff.
Very good points Heater. Solar is heavily subsidized in Germany so there are now solar panels everywhere.
I have seen a few places here in Southern California where solar arrays are placed over the parking lot. You generate power and partially protect the vehicles from the environment.
Frankly with the anti-government mood currently enveloping the US we seem to be regressing rather than progressing. Only when it becomes a crisis do things get done.
Very good points Heater. Solar is heavily subsidized in Germany so there are now solar panels everywhere.
I have seen a few places here in Southern California where solar arrays are placed over the parking lot. You generate power and partially protect the vehicles from the environment.
Frankly with the anti-government mood currently enveloping the US we seem to be regressing rather than progressing. Only when it becomes a crisis do things get done.
You should hope such mood continues and grows, otherwise the majority of us end up as "fish in a tank" existing only to support the political elite.
It is extremely difficult to prove a direct link between cause and effect. The best that can be done is proof by circumstancial evidence.
In some circles the burden of evidence needed to show a link exist is ridiculously high. Take the Creationism versus Evolution debate for example.
Sadly, some debates are not about getting to the best answer so much as getting a voting block to align with you because of their belief systems... rational or irrational. Personally, I feel such a ploy is as bad as just buying votes. So we have guns versus no guns; right to life versus abortion; creation versus evolution, death penalty or not, animal rights or not, and so on. All polarizing (but gathering of votes) as opposed to seeking solutions to real problems that need a clear path for the benefit of all. I fear that far too many just vote for people that say what they want to hear rather than vote for thoses that really are will to work for good.
It takes all kinds to make a world, and it takes significantly more effort to tolerate all kinds to make a better world.
Although all discussions about the data depend upon a long chain of assumptions, I think the raw data is close enough to the surface to be useful.
First, it would appear that global warming is not uniform. In the data, during the epoch studied, it appears that global warming started in the Southern Hemisphere and preceded a rise
in CO2 by at least 800 years. So, it is true that global warming was initiated in this period by something other than increasing bio-mass. Next, the warming of the Northern regions lagged the Southern by about a thousand years. We could expect that global warming would lead to more bio-mass reflected by the rising CO2 800 years later.
I do not see references to total thermal mass effects. If we normalize for the exchanges between ice and water, then we should expect a non-linear relationship between the magnitude of ice loss and the effect on temperature change this does appear to be reflected in the historic record as a later rise in temperature which may or may not lead CO2 concentrations.
What precipitated the initial warming? The most popular theory is a change in the orbit of the Earth but this discussion is limited to effect that would be seen by changes in total radiation intensities and ignores possible gravitational changes that would take place within the Earth's mass and might also cause global warming.
Because of volumetric effects on the thermal mass of the ice sheet, the state change of the ice would show up as a non-linear perturbation the conclusion that CO2 has any impact on the process is really not supported it might be true, but the data can be interpreted in many other ways as well.
It seems that no matter where I turn in my tiny little house, I am at risk of stepping on something I ordered at some point at Erco's suggestion.
I have been thinking of buying an RV and moving my hobby into it. The weak point of an RV seems to be the roof so I was thinking to
buy something with a leaking roof(always the cheapest) and then covering it with solar panels that are well sealed against the winter weather.
@Rich
Buy an RV with a leaky roof, but actually put another new roof six inches above the old with an air gap. That would take all the solar heat gain and the RV would remain cool. Of course, the new roof could have solar panels, but don't miss the opportunity to create a passive solution to keeping cool.
Regarding the data...
It seems the human brain fails at 42 degrees centigrade. If you live somewhere that you can't find shelter from the heat, you die. Babies and elderly go first. We have already had big kill offs during heat waves in Paris, France and Chicago, USA; just because the elderly and the poor didn't have air conditioning and the hospitals had inadequate air conditioning.
Just looking at recent trends in peak temperatures globally show over 42 degrees are trending more frequent. The rest of the affects may be more projected, but I think anyone that looks at recent decade objectively can say the weather has been more extreme... and more heat into the whole means more extremes.
I think there is adequate evidence that we should not allow our concerns about global warming to interfere with our attempts to keep people from starving.
The next part of the issue: what is the impact of atmospheric CO2 on global crop yields… we are going to need a real expert here:)
The University of Illinois' agriculture school has some real experts, but all of my friends have either died or retired.
I think global warming is a fact… there is no way to escape it.
We are going to have to adapt and we need to get on with it as soon as possible.
Rich
The other side of this... air quality is equally dire.
Back in 1994, when I arrived in Kaohsiung, the air quality index was making a poor showing in the 400 and 500 range, especially during the 5 pm rush hour period with wall to wall 2 cycle motor scooters.
As a result, I quickly developed chest pains and was prescribed nitro-glycerin tablets and beta-blockers for a few years.
But since then, the air has been cleared up by big clean ups in the motor scooters, the local steel industry, and the local petro-chemical industry. And I haven't been on beta-blockers or taking nitro-glycerin for chest pains for at least a decade.
Can you imagine breathing in Beijing with a pollution index of 800. I can't. I can't even imagine surviving a quick tourist visit to there. And the last ones to Guang Zhou and Hong Kong were very lung hostile.
So setting aside the global warming, there are a lot of people that simply need to breathe.
"Real experts", somewhat of an oxymoron. We need broad public mandate.
I'm one of those old fart engineers and I have no doubt that we humans have an exponentially growing impact on the environment. However, I see the ignore-ance of Global Climate Change as being merely the tip of a greater iceberg, so to speak. I think Phil Pilgrim hit the iceberg on the head when he said that we suffer from the general problem of anti-intellectualism. Our entire global society seems to suffer from it. As I see it, it's not that "intellectuals" don't have their biases and don't make egregious mistakes, it's that we, as a society, don't have enough intelligence in the general populace to make our own critical evaluations of the studies which those "intellectuals" hand down to society. In the US, the attempted solution to that problem seems to be the "Common Core," which is a set of guidelines for educating the next generation, a set of educational goals that are intended to make the next generation much more capable of making informed rational decisions. Generally speaking, I applaud those goals and I respect the principles of democracy that those goals are set up to help support. Problem is, the implementation of that Common Core is, in some places, turning out to be an educational catastrophe. Why? Because the same imbeciles who are victims of a previously bad educational system are making today's decisions about how to implement the changes society needs to make sense of reality, moving forward. In my local area, for example, implementation of this so-called solution to our educational problems has become a tragic, Potemkin-village-like, Catch-22 kind of travesty. Administrators have made moves to eradicate classes aimed at more advanced kids, claiming that the new curriculum will eliminate the need for advanced classwork. Meanwhile, on top of that, we've now got federal laws that require public schools to allow students with mental illnesses to be "mainstreamed" into the same classrooms with kids without mental illnesses. The result is that teachers are trying to implement a brand new educational curriculum aimed at the next century while a fraction of the classroom is suffering from anxious outbursts, hallucinations, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, you name it. I think if we truly valued the fruits of intelligence, then we, as a society, would never even think of doing such a thing to our kids and teachers. The reality is that we, as a species, apparently care more about people kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals than we do about anything else (with the possible exception of making more copies of ourselves to do exactly the same thing that was done before).
It appears that the solution to Global Climate Change, as well as all our other problems, is to get really, really, really good at kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals.
I guess one question could be: does hockey usher otherwise good brains into the Concussion Club faster or slower than football and helmet-less motorcycle riding? And are concussions necessarily a good thing or a bad thing if achieved in the extreme?
I learned on the Hanford Nuclear Area that if you offered a mix of a good enough salary, enough interesting equipment, and a leading edge challenge to a bright engineer -- the engineer will 9 out of 10 times not consider the downside consequences to humanity..will be very wiling to accept that better informed people have that side of it managed.
End result - Fukishima
Reactors may be perfectly safe in the USA, but we exported the technology to a lot of places where the education and the maintenace are less that optimal (including where I am, Taiwan).
Thus I did not last long in the building nuclear reactors. I was too concerned with the questions that were embarrassing.
We tend to be doing the same with global warming. It is here. After all, that super-typhoon in the Philippenes was 5 times bigger than Katrina.
I guess one question could be: does hockey usher otherwise good brains into the Concussion Club faster or slower than football and helmet-less motorcycle riding? And are concussions necessarily a good thing or a bad thing if achieved in the extreme?
Comments
Just how many Ribbons of black and grey can you drape over a green landscape before the green is no longer effective?
Roads, Freeways, Highways, By-ways, anyways you slice it, it can't be good for Mother Earth.
All those black lines, stretched out across the landscape, tearing entire Eco systems in half,
Just so you can get there from here...
You guys are the devil...
You should all have your cars smashed into tiny squares, and then stack them into giant pyramids in some remote jungle...
-Tailspin
P.S. Casters are for suckers!
Sorry, current International Deforestation Treaties do not allow for the stacking of cars smashed into tiny squares in to geometric shapes in remote jungle areas. If Greenpeace isn't looking, you may be able to dump the off the coast of New Jersey. If they give you trouble, just call them "artificial reef materials".
Car crushing, Road building, Pyramid construction.. Sounds like Commerce to me!
And if the super economy boost isn't enough, The Pyramids could then be turned into gathering places for 'Sporting'
"It's Shovel ready!"
-SteamRoller
That should solve this ....human co2 plague... i mean the bpa, mercury, chlorine, FLUoride, arsenic, and many other things being put into the food and water aren't working fast enough and most of that just gets released into the environment in the form of pee, poop, and most of all cremation.
(but hey, co2 is the biggest worry they can come up with because it has the added benefit of restricting humans, if we stopped putting all that Smile into the humans consumption, they might reproduce faster, or figure out some other technological solution to global warming, and then what will we use as an excuse to restrict them?)
For those who are really interested in the science of Global Warming, I have always found this site to be excellent.
There is nearly always a logically argued response you can very easily point people to whenever they trot out the same old stale myths.
Ross.
I'm not trying to be ageist. I value experience and respect those that have it.
Just pointing out what I see about the topic...
I just see in my immediate circle the majority of older engineers and a lot of retirees very vocally saying that Global Warming (Global Climate Change) is a complete fallacy.
Global Warming cause by human actions even more ludicrous.
But actually, they're completely right, but only from their own personal perspective.
Just because global warming has no chance of affecting them, doesn't mean that it won't start to have a detrimental effect on what would be their grandchildren or great-grandchildren's future lives.
A concept of, "well it isn't true for me" and "even if I'm wrong and future generations do blame me, it doesn't matter because I'll be long-dead".
They simply have no stake in the endgame.
Basically this is how the thinking behind fiat currency and fractional reserve currency works as well: Works great for a handful of generations, until the inevitable effects of requiring constant growth and new loans to cover the old loans' compounding interest surface. Works great until the interest owed becomes provably impossible for all the collateral in the entire world to cover the quadrillion bajillion dollars the balance due geometrically grows to. Then the statement is made, "well, can you come up with a better system?" And I say no, but I can at least see what is not optimal about the present system for those people futher and further into the future, and how optimal it is for those near the beginning.
It's about perspective. Who benefits from sticking to what opinion.
Thanks for clearing that up. When you consider how much of our future will be vested in producing more electrical power for cooling devices to often the global warming, it is good to know that with the right means for energy production and transportation there is a way out of this.
A very impressive set up. Sure I'd like to do that kind of thing. However up here I think I'd soon freeze if I tried to rely in it in winter.
About those gold fish. Was there some experimenting going on with gold fish and acid here?
I'm one of those old fart engineers and I have no doubt that we humans have an exponentially growing impact on the environment. However, I see the ignore-ance of Global Climate Change as being merely the tip of a greater iceberg, so to speak. I think Phil Pilgrim hit the iceberg on the head when he said that we suffer from the general problem of anti-intellectualism. Our entire global society seems to suffer from it. As I see it, it's not that "intellectuals" don't have their biases and don't make egregious mistakes, it's that we, as a society, don't have enough intelligence in the general populace to make our own critical evaluations of the studies which those "intellectuals" hand down to society. In the US, the attempted solution to that problem seems to be the "Common Core," which is a set of guidelines for educating the next generation, a set of educational goals that are intended to make the next generation much more capable of making informed rational decisions. Generally speaking, I applaud those goals and I respect the principles of democracy that those goals are set up to help support. Problem is, the implementation of that Common Core is, in some places, turning out to be an educational catastrophe. Why? Because the same imbeciles who are victims of a previously bad educational system are making today's decisions about how to implement the changes society needs to make sense of reality, moving forward. In my local area, for example, implementation of this so-called solution to our educational problems has become a tragic, Potemkin-village-like, Catch-22 kind of travesty. Administrators have made moves to eradicate classes aimed at more advanced kids, claiming that the new curriculum will eliminate the need for advanced classwork. Meanwhile, on top of that, we've now got federal laws that require public schools to allow students with mental illnesses to be "mainstreamed" into the same classrooms with kids without mental illnesses. The result is that teachers are trying to implement a brand new educational curriculum aimed at the next century while a fraction of the classroom is suffering from anxious outbursts, hallucinations, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, you name it. I think if we truly valued the fruits of intelligence, then we, as a society, would never even think of doing such a thing to our kids and teachers. The reality is that we, as a species, apparently care more about people kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals than we do about anything else (with the possible exception of making more copies of ourselves to do exactly the same thing that was done before).
It appears that the solution to Global Climate Change, as well as all our other problems, is to get really, really, really good at kicking, throwing, or hitting balls into variously-shaped goals.
Good luck with that.
Oh yes. I was tipping sulfuric acid into the fishtank. But but... bear with me here. Prior to that I noticed the fish were a bit unwell, so I tested the pH with my nifty electronic pH probe and found it was too alkali in the fishtank. So I was correcting the pH back to where it should be.
Easy to do with a fish tank and with a swimming pool. Not so sure about the ocean though. My great fear is that global warming *isn't* happening, because most of the CO2 we are making is dissolving in the oceans, and we are not noticing the pH falling because of buffers in the ocean (I put buffers in my pool and my fishtank too). But buffers can't stabilise pH forever - I remember the experiments we did at school. When the buffer overloads, then the oceans become acidic and all the shellfish shells will dissolve.
Re solar hot water in Finland, yes, that may not work. But intriguingly, solar electric panels actually are more efficient when they are cold. Does Europe have a grid yet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid
Then you could make your electricity in North Africa, Spain etc.
Australia is building this sort of thing too. All states except Western Australia are on a single grid. It is possible to store energy with pumped hydro, which gets very efficient at the large scale. South Australia now makes over 20% of its electricity from wind turbines, with more coming online over the next few years. Meanwhile, a bushfire got into one of Australia's coal mines and made living in the nearby towns very unpleasant for a month http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/morwell-coalmine-fire-finally-extinguished-after-45-days
It seems to me this is not a political problem. Solar, wind etc makes sense because it has got a lot cheaper. Ten years ago, solar was $10 a watt. I picked up my panels for 54c a watt, and that was without any government subsidy.
There are so many smart solutions we could be doing. For instance, where I live we don't have much natural rainfall. So we either have to pump from the Murray River, which nearly went dry a few years ago, or we get water from desalination. Both pumping and desalination can be run when you have wind or sun. Store the water you make in reservoirs. Ditto storing heat and coldness in water.
Global warming and all that stuff used to make me depressed. But not since I saw my meter running backwards (made $12 worth of electricity today exported to the grid - after all my family's energy needs were met). And yes, now it is dark and I am drawing back from the grid but lightbulbs, TVs and computers don't use much - a few kwh at most in the evenings - and more and more that energy is coming from large wind turbines.
+1
Another +1
It sure seems like some media organizations have gone to great lengths to distort what is reported in scientific journals. While some of the distortion is intentional I think there's also a lot bad reporting because the journalists don't have enough of a science background to understand the journals they are reporting on. And now that we have the internet, the number of under,educated "journalists" has exploded.
I thought this science reporter's YouTube videos on the subject of climate change in the media very interesting.
Using terms like "cretin" and "Deniers" bespeaks an air of contempt and a deep-rooted desire to shut down any debate.
There's no current against "intellectualism".
It's skepticism - it's the resistance of the free to having their lives turned over to a control elite, (be they degreed, self-appointed, or otherwise.)
But, but,... what about the hockey stick?
So far, there is some solar cooling for commercial use in larger buildings. We actual have a major Japanese firm that produces the heat exchange units in Pingdong, Taiwan.
But the off-the-grid aspect would help the people that are in most dire need of help now - Aussies, India, and Africans.
It may not not be for everyone. It may require ammonia gas as coolant or a lot of other eco-challenging coolant. But even limited deployment to bush hospitals and community refuges would help a lot.
I can understand changing the fish tank ph, but wonder if the added sulphur is going to create a problem. After all, there are a lot of other acids that might be better.
In some circles the burden of evidence needed to show a link exist is ridiculously high. Take the Creationism versus Evolution debate for example.
How we got divided into "jocks" and "geeks" I don't know.
Dr_A,
Do we have a grid? Sure we do. Electricity is traded all around Europe.
Places like Helsinki tend to be very efficient. All that waste heat from power stations is not vented to the atmosphere with huge cooling towers like it is in England. No it's piped all around the city as super heated steam to provide heat for the apartment buildings. Pretty much for free.
Up in the forests of Northern Europe solar power is actually a big thing. You see there are a lot of summer cottages up there. Often off grid, but if you are there in the summer the days are long. Why not use solar power.
Solar power is very big in Germany. I was amazed at how many roof tops I saw covered in panels whilst travelling around last summer.
Denmark is really into wind turbines. They are everywhere. Someone told me they were getting up to 60% of their electricity from wind power.
In Spain the is a lot of solar work going on. Huge reflectors focusing light to drive Strirling Engines. Or to melt salt which stores energy as heat until it us used at night. Interesting stuff.
I have seen a few places here in Southern California where solar arrays are placed over the parking lot. You generate power and partially protect the vehicles from the environment.
Frankly with the anti-government mood currently enveloping the US we seem to be regressing rather than progressing. Only when it becomes a crisis do things get done.
You should hope such mood continues and grows, otherwise the majority of us end up as "fish in a tank" existing only to support the political elite.
C.W.
Sadly, some debates are not about getting to the best answer so much as getting a voting block to align with you because of their belief systems... rational or irrational. Personally, I feel such a ploy is as bad as just buying votes. So we have guns versus no guns; right to life versus abortion; creation versus evolution, death penalty or not, animal rights or not, and so on. All polarizing (but gathering of votes) as opposed to seeking solutions to real problems that need a clear path for the benefit of all. I fear that far too many just vote for people that say what they want to hear rather than vote for thoses that really are will to work for good.
It takes all kinds to make a world, and it takes significantly more effort to tolerate all kinds to make a better world.
Thank you RossH! @#37. If you guys would follow Ross's link, it leads herehttps://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
Although all discussions about the data depend upon a long chain of assumptions, I think the raw data is close enough to the surface to be useful.
First, it would appear that global warming is not uniform. In the data, during the epoch studied, it appears that global warming started in the Southern Hemisphere and preceded a rise
in CO2 by at least 800 years. So, it is true that global warming was initiated in this period by something other than increasing bio-mass. Next, the warming of the Northern regions lagged the Southern by about a thousand years. We could expect that global warming would lead to more bio-mass reflected by the rising CO2 800 years later.
I do not see references to total thermal mass effects. If we normalize for the exchanges between ice and water, then we should expect a non-linear relationship between the magnitude of ice loss and the effect on temperature change this does appear to be reflected in the historic record as a later rise in temperature which may or may not lead CO2 concentrations.
What precipitated the initial warming? The most popular theory is a change in the orbit of the Earth but this discussion is limited to effect that would be seen by changes in total radiation intensities and ignores possible gravitational changes that would take place within the Earth's mass and might also cause global warming.
Because of volumetric effects on the thermal mass of the ice sheet, the state change of the ice would show up as a non-linear perturbation the conclusion that CO2 has any impact on the process is really not supported it might be true, but the data can be interpreted in many other ways as well.
Thanks
Ross
It seems that no matter where I turn in my tiny little house, I am at risk of stepping on something I ordered at some point at Erco's suggestion.
I have been thinking of buying an RV and moving my hobby into it. The weak point of an RV seems to be the roof so I was thinking to
buy something with a leaking roof(always the cheapest) and then covering it with solar panels that are well sealed against the winter weather.
Rich
Buy an RV with a leaky roof, but actually put another new roof six inches above the old with an air gap. That would take all the solar heat gain and the RV would remain cool. Of course, the new roof could have solar panels, but don't miss the opportunity to create a passive solution to keeping cool.
Regarding the data...
It seems the human brain fails at 42 degrees centigrade. If you live somewhere that you can't find shelter from the heat, you die. Babies and elderly go first. We have already had big kill offs during heat waves in Paris, France and Chicago, USA; just because the elderly and the poor didn't have air conditioning and the hospitals had inadequate air conditioning.
Just looking at recent trends in peak temperatures globally show over 42 degrees are trending more frequent. The rest of the affects may be more projected, but I think anyone that looks at recent decade objectively can say the weather has been more extreme... and more heat into the whole means more extremes.
The next part of the issue: what is the impact of atmospheric CO2 on global crop yields… we are going to need a real expert here:)
The University of Illinois' agriculture school has some real experts, but all of my friends have either died or retired.
Anybody here from the U of I?
Rich
Thank you very much hadn't thought of that!!!
I think global warming is a fact there is no way to escape it.
We are going to have to adapt and we need to get on with it as soon as possible.
Rich
The other side of this... air quality is equally dire.
Back in 1994, when I arrived in Kaohsiung, the air quality index was making a poor showing in the 400 and 500 range, especially during the 5 pm rush hour period with wall to wall 2 cycle motor scooters.
As a result, I quickly developed chest pains and was prescribed nitro-glycerin tablets and beta-blockers for a few years.
But since then, the air has been cleared up by big clean ups in the motor scooters, the local steel industry, and the local petro-chemical industry. And I haven't been on beta-blockers or taking nitro-glycerin for chest pains for at least a decade.
Can you imagine breathing in Beijing with a pollution index of 800. I can't. I can't even imagine surviving a quick tourist visit to there. And the last ones to Guang Zhou and Hong Kong were very lung hostile.
So setting aside the global warming, there are a lot of people that simply need to breathe.
"Real experts", somewhat of an oxymoron. We need broad public mandate.
I guess one question could be: does hockey usher otherwise good brains into the Concussion Club faster or slower than football and helmet-less motorcycle riding? And are concussions necessarily a good thing or a bad thing if achieved in the extreme?
End result - Fukishima
Reactors may be perfectly safe in the USA, but we exported the technology to a lot of places where the education and the maintenace are less that optimal (including where I am, Taiwan).
Thus I did not last long in the building nuclear reactors. I was too concerned with the questions that were embarrassing.
We tend to be doing the same with global warming. It is here. After all, that super-typhoon in the Philippenes was 5 times bigger than Katrina.
Clearly, I misjudged my audience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
Uh-huh
I'm sure that was it.