Slashdot Mirror

Respectfully, I suggest you research these issues further to avoid spreading confusion on them.

For example, while humans don't fix nitrogen, human waste contains a lot of nitrogen from food that is eaten. For example, by one calculation
http://www.agriculturesnetwork...
"Roughly estimated, at least 800 million kg nitrogen, 400 million kg phosphate and 500 million kg potash can be annually acquired from night soil produced in urban areas. This is equivalent to some 4 million tonnes of commercial fertiliser, which is about 4% of all commercial fertiliser used throughout the country."

Considering how much fertilizer is wasted in modern systems, you can see that this was a big deal in China as part of a closed cycle including other techniques to restore soil fertility. Granted there are other issues with pathogens and contamination from "night soil", but nonetheless, China is an example of doing wihout the Haber process for 4000 years and still supporting big populations by other means.

Historically, rotational field cropping has also been used to replenish the soil. Also, intercropping can boost nitrogen levels in intensive agriculture;
"Intercropping with nitrogen-fixing crops leads to increased maize yields, says study"
http://www.enn.com/agriculture...
"Results show that while mono cropping practices produce a high yield crop, it is not the sustainable solution in the long run. Instead, the research suggests that by strategically combining small doses of inorganic fertilizer through an intercropping system, maize yields will be more stable and will not only increase, but will lead to other ecosystem services like soil stability, water storage capacity and overall fertility. "

Integrated agricultural systems such as involving water from fish ponds and such can also increase nitrogen in agriculture..

I've cited sources for my points, including how excessive nitrogen fertilizer causes micronutrient loss. While nitrogen is often a limiting nutrient, the point is that it can displace other nutrients very easily, causing other issues. Beyond clay, organic matter also holds onto micronutrients. This is one reason "organic" farming focuses on building up the organic matter content of soils to increase nutrient holding capacity. "Feed the soil and keep it healthy for healthy plants" is the motto there. By contrast, conventional agriculture essentially uses the soil to prop up plants, and tends to produce lush green growth with excessive nitrogen, but the plants are otherwise weak and unhealthy and susceptible to disease. There are other broader problems from excess nitrogen too:
http://www.vision.org/visionme...

Please cite sources etc. substantiating your various points especially disagreeing with the loss of micronutrients (which is basic chemistry, if usually ignored in mainstream agriculture which tends to maximize empty calories) in order for this to be a more productive dialog.

Here's the bottom line on at least US agriculture. Almost everything grown just goes to feed animals, and eating too many animal products is bad for people's health, as is eating too many refined grains (another big part of the rest of US agriculture). So really, all this discussion about fertilizer in that sense is besides the point in many ways. See:
http://www.westernwatersheds.o...
"Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are prima

"ExxonMobil believes the panel's finding about the multi-beam echo sounder is unjustified due to the lack of certainty of information and observations recorded during the response efforts in 2008," spokesman Patrick McGinn told AFP in an email. He added that observers employed by the Madagascar government and the oil giant "were on board the vessel and did not observe any whales in the area."'"

Certainty of information: Nobody requires absolute certainty in science. In fact, even the court system, sad as it is, needs it -- it requires "beyond reasonable doubt", whereas science is similarily situated at "best model that fits the facts". Type of cognitive distortion ExxonMobile uses here: All-or-nothing thinking.

Out of date observations: It's 2013 now. By carefully hand picking your data set to be only, say, 2008, or pre-2008, you are discounting everything that came after. One supposes that an extra five years' worth of observations, we'd be able to narrow in on a cause. But let's humor them and take just 2008. In February of that year, before the incident in question, the US courts found there was enough evidence that high energy sonar was killing whales to ask the military to reduce its use in naval operations.

Impartial observers: Let me sum this one up real easy -- "Managment finds no problem with the management." The government was paid a lot of money to go along with Exxon, and employees of Exxon I think we can safely say aren't impartial observers. So one of the most basic things required for proper fact gathering went right out the window. This is, in effect, an admission that ExxonMobile has no valid data points from which to draw any conclusions whatsoever. It is, from a scientific perspective, pure speculation. "We're not wrong because, er, we saw ourselves doing nothing wrong." Okay... what about everyone else? "We didn't ask them."

You can only really judge based on per capita rates. China is 78th among countries with 5.3 metric tonnes CO2 per capita. The USA is 7th with 22.1.

You're looking at old data: http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/43332

I think the US is currently around 10th, and China is probably somewhere in the 50s or 60s. Most importantly, the US continues to decline in emissions whereas China continues to rise.

OP is correct. You only have to read recent news.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-solar-20110920,0,2015603.story

http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/32974

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

Remember, the USA helped create bin Laden by funding and training and arming him to fight against the USSR...

Yes, I agree on the need to switch to alternative energy and energy efficiency. The total US military budget is somewhere around US$1 trillion per year (or more with interest). That's a lot of solar panels and wind turbines and home insulation. Amory Lovins (IIRC) suggested decades ago that just the operating cost for two years of the US Persian Gulf deployment force would be enough to imporve US energy efficiency to the point where we did not need the oil from the Persian Gulf. So, yet more irony. On that, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

The state of the art in Germany is now to build houses without furnaces, they are so well-built, well-insulated, and have air-to-air heat exchangers for fresh air without much energy loss.
http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/38940

Electric cars apparently use less energy per mile then it takes just to refine the oil into gasoline to go the same distance:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

Another irony is that in the 1940s and 1950s nuclear physcisits realzied the thorium-based nuclear power would be inherently safer and more abundant than uranium and plutonium based nuclear power (you can't easily make bombs from thorium and it can't melt down easily because it is used already in the molten state and can be drained easily into cooling tanks) but thorium power was discarded precisely because it was safer (you could not make bombs from it). So, instead of cheap, abundant, safe thorium power, we got lots of nuclear bombs to fight over middle east oil fields and other resource rich areas we would not need to access if we had cheap power.

I wonder that will come out of this press conference tomorrow (still not sure if it is a scam or confusion or not):
http://pesn.com/2011/06/17/9501849_Defkalion_Announces_Energy_Catalyzer_Press_Conference/
"By now, most people following exotic energy breakthroughs have read about Andrea Rossi's E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) cold fusion technology. It utilizes nickel powder, hydrogen gas, an undisclosed catalyst, heat, and pressure to produce large amounts of energy. The technology is capable of producing over 4 kilowatts of thermal power from a reactor vessel only fifty cubic centimeters in volume (about he size of your fist). Cold fusion research has been ongoing for two decades, and there have been thousands of successful experiments. However, Andrea Rossi's technology is the most promising cold fusion technology yet to emerge.
Andrea Rossi's company Leonardo Corporation has licensed the technology to the Greek company Defkalion Green Technologies Inc., with sole purpose to sell, license, and manufacture industrialized commercially applicable products using the Andrea Rossi Energy Catalyzer with global exclusivity rights; except the Americas. Defkalion has recently sent out invitations to certain individuals to attend a press conference about the technology on June 23, 2011. The invitation is self explanatory, and is posted below. "

But in any case, we'll probably have dirt-cheap solar panels in twenty years through nanotechnology or similar improvements in materials. We'd have had cheaper solar a lot sooner if either we had more government-funded R&D on them or if US consumers had to pay the true cost of fossil fuels up front (including defense expenditures and health costs and pollution costs and war risk).
http://www.iags.org/costofoil.html
http://www.energyandcapital.com/article

And Japan and South Korea subsidize home-installed fuel cells (an 80% subsidy in S. Korea's case). I'd like to see a comparison of costs and benefits (including greenhouse gases) of these fuel-cell units vs. the German approach.

Wow... truth hurts, huh?

I already listed a number of specific errors with Monckton's science, which you chose to ignore in favor of making false comparisons to religious cults.

I've learned over the years it is completely impossible to discuss science with the cult. It's like pointing out that virgin births and resurrection are highly improbably to someone who reads the Bible as literal truth.

Take your very first point for instance: CO2 time lags. It's absolutely irrational to assume that increased concentrations of CO2 800 yrs after the fact are the cause of warming rather than a consequence of it.

Furthermore, you engage in a classic logical fallacy: correlation equals causation. By taking a vanishingly small slice of Earth's geologic history, lining up CO2 and temp and then claiming that it is proof that CO2 invariably causes warming, the cult demonstrates it doesn't understand how real science works. The cult then proceeds to call a 100ppm rise to 370ppm a planetary emergency. You place all your faith in these cult leaders and their computer models, yet computer models are completely incapable of explaining an ice age with atmospheric CO2 in excess of 4000ppm. In fact, as Monckton pointed out, all you need to do is look a little further back into history and the correlation between CO2 and temperature falls apart completely.

Probably because that's all you've got.

Frankly, I have better things to do with my time than point out the flaws in your logic. As you've already demonstrated, you'll just fall back to your irrational religion and name calling, therefore doing so is quite pointless.

There was a ~10 year study on a single forest plot about 40 years ago. Those researches concluded that after 150 years a forest becomes carbon neutral. This study has been the guiding wisdom ever since.

Last week, a new study was published: Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. Nature 455, 213-215 (September 11, 2008). It examined 519 forest plots around the world ranging in age from 50 to 800 years and found that most of them are carbon sinks. The analysis of a single forest should not have been generalized to all forests. Your assumptions are founded on information that is now outdated based on this new, more general, study.

1. Where are the trees putting the carbon? (Gaining additional wood weight I assume... but when they die and fall over, all the carbon is released again by bacteria.)

While carbon is stored in wood mass, a majority of the carbon is actually stored in the soil. http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/473 (I can't find any scientific article that supports your assertion that all the carbon is "released by bacteria")

2. How fast are they sequestering it, compared to the rate at which a clearcut/replant forest would do so?

According to this study, 60% faster than a plantation forest. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/37839 A huge amount of carbon is released when a primary forest is clear cut. Logging primary forests releases ~40% of their stored carbon. Source: Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage. ANU E Press (July 2008).

The lumber industry is greedy, remember? They want to grow the greatest amount of wood in the fastest possible time. They therefore are perfectly motivated to maximize carbon sequestration. And the way that they do it is: for most species, clearcut once every 25-50 years and then replant.

Your argument is flawed by assuming that plantation forests absorb more carbon than old growth forests. This assumption is not supported by current research. Additionally, it takes 5-20 years before newly planted forest begins to absorb more carbon than it emits. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080910133934.htm

like comparing counterfeiting money with copyright infringement... wow

That's stupid. Stop making me think you're an idiot.

No they don't. People go to bars to socialize; to meet people; to chase women; to listen to music; for a lot of other reasons. You can drink at home for a WHOLE lot cheaper than at a bar. Nobody goes to a bar to drink. You might try visiting one sometime when you're old enough.

From what I've read, most P2P downloaders are downloading because the last CD they bought had one song they liked and they don't want their hard-earned money to be stolen again by the RIAA frauds. Most of what's downloaded gets erased PDQ, and what little good stuff that's found results in a sale.

I won't say it's all dreck, just >99% of it. Kind of like the indies, who aren't suing their customers but instead posting their music on MySpace. There is only a lot more good indie music because there is a lot more indie music.

The US economy was based on farming until the middle of the 20th century. Your ignorance is astounding.

Wow, that's past ignorant and into self-delusion. Please take your Haldol.

It seems France is using Fast Breeder Reactors. From "Science Magazine" dated 1980 "Breeder Reactors in France". Ok, Sciam says France shut down it's breeder reactor, but it doesn't say why. However the nuclear waste, or reprocessed fuel, wasn't the only problem the Spectrum article said the French had, they also had all the toxic chemicals left over from reprocessing.

I admit research may solve all the problems with nuclear power, but so can research with alternative energy sources, geothermal, solar, wind, and others. And with these others, whereas nuclear power requires massive centralized plants that when decommissioned can't be used for anything else, they can have distributed and decentralized electrical generation. I think the energy problem comes from centralized power generation. Another is waste, conservation measures can cut the US's energy needs down a lot as well as waste heat going up smoke stacks when it can be recovered. As more and more Off Gridders are showing simple conservation measures can go a long way to satisfying US energy needs.

"Disposal" isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be; reprocessing reduces the amount of waste produced tremendously, and storing a little waste for a time is a whole lot better than *not* storing it and dumping it into the atmosphere, as we're doing with coal.

The French, who have come the farthest in reprocessing, are finding out it's not as simple to reprocess as many would have you believe. IEEE's magazine "Spectrum" has a good article on this: "Nuclear Wasteland". However another /.er brought up the Candu reactor in Canada a few weeks ago. I don't know much about it so I can't say whether there are any problems with the design or waste, or whether its economically feasible. However nuclear power isn't really needed, not in the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the 48 continuous states with electricity. Add OR, CA, AZ, NM, and Texas along with some offshore sites from Cape Cod to the Mid Atlantic and much more can be generated by wind. Also many megawatts of potential power goes up smoke stacks daily as Waste Heat. Combining wind, solar power, cogeneration or waste heat recovery and conservation negates the need for nuclear power. The alternative power sources, both listed above and others, have a distinct advantage over nuclear power, while it can take years and years for a nuclear power plant to be constructed and brought online, these others can be added immediately. Wind generators and solar PVs can be made from raw material and brought online in months, and can be sited closer to many of the placed where the energy is needed. Besides PVs on roofs a farmer in the Adirondack Mountains in New York can provide electricity to NYC. The farmer would then have a second source of income.

Well, if you don't mind the sources, check out this alternate coverage (with pictures):

Telegraph.co.uk article
ENN article

• Ice shelves in the arctic are breaking up and falling into the sea.
• The north pole is melting.
• Glaciers all around the world are receding at an alarming rate.
• This has led a number of ski areas to fear for their futures.
• Indonesia's islands are being submerged by the rising oceans.

Now, it might be reasoned that the Earth is warming naturally and that humans can't possibly effect such a change on the environment. If you believe this, I have a bridge in Minnesota to sell you. Have you been to China lately? There, in an attempt to rapidly industrialize, they have churned up so much dust and smoke so as to make most of the air unbreathable. When on travels north from Beijing to Badaling (where the Great Wall is up in the mountains), the smog is so bad it makes LA at rush hour look like heaven.

The examples I have listed above are all things which have not happened in the last several thousand years (esp. the one about the ski areas :-) ) In some cases, one must go back tens of thousands of years to see such large scale changes in the environment. It may be that it's part of the natural cycle. However pundits on this side of the issue have yet to prove that they understand the ice age any better than those on the side of climate change. However, climate scientists *have* shown that increased CO2 can lead to warming in all kinds of closed systems, and the rapid industrialization of the world is contributing to the CO2 that's out there.

In short, if you don't trust the computer models which nobody sees as perfect, don't bury your head in the sand. Look around with your own eyes and you will see that there's tons of other evidence that the world is changing.

Never mind the fact that scientists are witnessing ice shelves in Antarctica falling into the sea. Or that the North Pole is melting so that there will soon be a North-West Passage which Canada is laying claims to. Or that much of the global warming data does not come from NASA. Or that ski areas in the Alpsare going out of business. Or that there is glacial melting everywhere.. Or that Indonesia's islands are being submerged by rising sea level. Call me a deluded, but it seems that the preponderance of evidence is on the side of these so called "global warming" fanatics.

YOU CAN'T LOSE WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE, lol!

Ten Penguin Species March Toward Endangered Species Act Protection:

http://www.enn.com/net.html?id=2035

Now, remind me again: Ahem (lol) - HOW MANY LINUX MAJOR DISTROS ARE THERE NOWADAYS?

(ROTFLMAO!)

APK

P.S.=> LOL, "putting on seatbelts" for the eventual flaming from "Pro-Penguinista" rebels, lol, & the inevitable "downmoderation" from the dictatorial "el presidente, kings of this banana-republic online" type administrators/mods here @ the home of "Anti-Windows/Anti-Microsoft F.U.D.", lol, here on slashdot!

Proof?

Ah, no hassles: See here, per this earlier example in this thread:

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=258073&thr eshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=20059673

LMAO... hugely!

apk

Apparently the EPA does do something.

The first of my heresies says that all the fluff about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.

Cry me a river.

But I have studied their climate models and know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.

Show me the evidence.

The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That's why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

Ad hominem. And also, just plain wrong

There's no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global.

yes it is

I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.

Sorry, did anyone say that these issues were zero sum?

He also worked out a way to reverse global warming quite cheaply.

Possibly. It's a little more complicated than that.

I'm not even particularly opinionated on the issue of global warming, but this guy's said nothing, i repeat nothing in the above paragraph to contribute, other than his own opinion. THAT's why his first sentence is so defensive.

Chuckle, chuckle chuckle.

If any of you care to do any of the most basic research on the history of climate studies, you will find some very strong "opinions" with regards to human induced climate change.

I do not think, or at least I haven't found one scientist yet that doesn't think the climate is changing.

Everyone agrees on that.

The human part is the sticky issue. I don't believe for example burning fossil fuels is making the sort of climate changes I have witnessed.

I DO know that when you follow THE MONEY on the issue here is what I come up with:

1) Hollywood has made millions off the idea.
2) Al Gore, has made a VERY comfortable living proclaiming it to be so, with a carbon "footprint" even George Bush would be impressed with, even though he has absolutely no expertise scientifically as a proponent of the idea.
3) Every major university institution is giving position and power to those who "TOW THE LINE" about human induced climate change based on Federal funding and NSF grants, which is very lucrative.
4) Every major prediction proclaimed since this idea has come about has been revised every year. Nobody it would seem can predict climatic change, even though, everyone working on the very lucrative professionally and financially idea of human induced climate change, has got the "research numbers down pat" they all assure us.

Contrast that sort of "fish bowl" science research with those in the astrophysics/solar weather fields that say our sun has/is going "berzerk" in the past 30 years.

http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1186 /
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
http://physics.gmu.edu/~jevans/astr103/CourseNotes /sun_activity.html
http://www.spacew.com/astroalert.html

The solar cycles are completly out of "whack" right now.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/15sep_sola rminexplodes.htm

The suns behavior is anything but predictable and just this past January I was looking at beautiful aurora while I was visiting Chicago, IL.

Every major planet in the solars system is ALSO experiencing a warming trend.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/3 434

That could be due to all of the human colonies we have on mars for example as well as Jupitor's moons.

There is plenty of evidence for alternative explanations to climate change.

So why are we not hearing them?

ANSWER: No money to be made.

I mean look at some of the truly outrageous projects given considered SERIOUS thought by proponents of global warming:

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8897

HOW MUCH do you think a project like that would cost and WHO DO you think is going to get the money for it?

It sure isn't the third world countries who are being asked to starve to death and endure this climate change.

There is no suggestion of planting more trees either as you can't make money off of planting trees. It costs too much.

I SEMLL A RAT.

-Hackus

-Hackus

I'm opposed to this simply because I view it as an arguement to essentially dismantle peer review by flooding it with disinformation.

As the article mentions, there are many organizations that don't like scientific information having consensus and respect.

This is very clear by:
1. The Forced ShutDown of EPA Libraries
2. Scrapping the funding of the NASA earth program
3. Censoring of the US Geological Survey

_

Whats more,
The article mentions this guy is from an Exxon PR firm.
A group which stands the most to gain from disinformation.

Sure humans can try and cope, but there are several billion other species on this planet that are incredibly susceptible to environmental change. I doubt that it could be successfully argued that the extinction of, say, 50% of these species is a good idea, and I don't think that humankind could really try and discover how to save these species before global warming kills either us or them.

I'd merely cite Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and say that analyzed peer reviewed academic journals for dissention on the topic of global warming, but such vague referencing doesn't really seem appropriate for the discussions that slashdot encourages. This however, is a summary of research into the peer reviewed journals. 75% of the articles analyzed agree that global warming is occurring, and that it is doing damage to Earth's biota. 25% of the articles are ambivalent towards the effects of global warming. That leaves a big, fat 0% of peer reviewed academic articles supporting the corporate viewpoint of global warming.

Finally, the Kyoto Protocols were a step towards undoing and reducing environmental damage caused by industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, the Kyoto Protocols aren't going to do much - while they are restrictive in a capitalistic sense, they are very lenient in an environmental sense, and will not effectively reduce global warming by themselves (see article here). I guess those of you in the United States do not have to worry about it much though, since the US never ratified the treaty - in fact, it sounds like certain government agencies are doing their best to prevent global warming from being acknowledged as a threat.

I think, that perhaps rather than trying to work out how survive the time-bomb that's ticking right in front of us, it might be better to try and work out how to defuse it.

Source? :P

Fair enough :-)

Some species of coral grow only a millimeter per year, and even quick sprouters add less than an inch.

From my memory it was 13 millimeters. But I was wrong (that was one species only)

That is, until you consider the effects of burning large tracts of forest, which directly contributes CO2 and removes CO2 sinks.
Read this article.

The current Salmon run is already well above the ten-year average for the entire year.
the "destroy Eastern Washington's Economy^W^W^W^WSave the Fish" FUD people generally can't be bothered by mere facts.

I realize you're from Oregon, but this is the same sort of nonsense the east side of Washington state has to deal with from the people other side of the Cascades.

Unless they sold the patent or gave it to their employer as part of their job (in either case they still benefit from it), they hold it.

Uh. If they can afford the costs of getting a patent and defending it. The legal costs alone of obtaining a patent approach $10,000, and it typically costs $1.5 million per party to litigate a patent.
That N times 1.5 million could have been much better spent on actual research...

71% of current U.S. patents are held by the top 250 US corporations, not individuals (source: Aharonian). You, as an inventor with one patent... and a few million, might win a single patent battle. You _will_ lose the patent war unless you produce nothing except litigation (note that I as an engineer WANT TO MAKE COOL STUFF MYSELF, NOT PROSECUTE SLIMY LAWSUITS AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE WHO PRODUCE COOL STUFF) - every nontrivial workable product these days except maybe in the pharma industry infringes on several patents. It's only because they're selectively enforced based on whim and backroom dealing in masonic lodges and golf clubs and the like that the industry still produces. The USPTO will let you patent any trivial modification of an existing design these days.

I don't know where you are getting your gross over generalization concerning how scientists and engineers act, but it is completely untrue

It is certainly not "completely untrue", at least where I am. Scientists and engineers do vary in their motivations, and there are always some assholes, but anti-patent sentiment gels with the typical opinions of most of the scientists and engineers I've met. Only anectdotal evidence, but I'm not going to waste my time dredging up opinion polls when in the grand scheme of things, it's my opinion that matters regarding inventions I produce, which _will_ be released without patent protection. History will prove me right in the end. Because I will make the history.

Sure can!

Check this article entitled San Francisco-area garbage generates energy.

>If you can point me to an instance in time when this has not been true, please do so, and back up your arguments with facts.

Well, I'll start with the easy stuff then, shall I?

>quiet diplomacy

This wasn't quiet at all. The catcalls, when I watched the video tape [Thanks for making it, Greenpeace!], were designed to incite violence (thanks Real TV!)... Which would violate another few principles, "to raise the level and quality of public debate." and "non-violent conflict".

Sooo, we're left with research and lobbying. I know another company that used those tactics!

Philip Morris.

I've been driving VW Turbo Diesel cars since 1984 and can really recommend them. My current model is a Jetta TDI Wagon, which we bought in Texas (since the dealers in California all wanted "markup") and drove all the way to the Bay Area, getting 52 MPG, going around 80 miles with the AC all the way up.

When we filled it up at truck stops we were able to use the higher pressure truck diesel pumps, and of course the Diesel was considerably cheaper than gas. Fuel efficiency and lower price really add up, especially when you have a long trip or commute.

The modern TDI engines are great, they have tons of torque and are very responsive (TDI = Turbo Diesel Injection). Now I'm looking forward to the 310hp 5.0l 10 cylinder VW Touareg TDI coming out soon :-) (553lbs.-ft. of torque!)

I haven't looked into using Biodiesel yet, but it seems to pick up more and more. It would certainly alleviate the residual bad conscience due to the particle emmissions from the Diesel. Just read an amazing story about a family driving from the Bay Area to Argentina on biodiesel picked up along the way. Actually worthy of a /. post!

The growth rate of the human population is currently declining and is expected to continue declining. In fact, there is increasing optimism that the worl population will stabilize at about 9 billion fifty years from now.

http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educ ators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Populatio n_Growth.htm
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyP ages/P/Populations.html#Predicting_Future_Populati on_Size
http://www.enn.com/features/1999/05/052799/worldwa tch_3421.asp

Anonymous wrote:
AFAIK, Venice (Italia) is suffering from that kind of floods, but not because of Mediterranean rising but the city itself sinking :_(
To my knowledge Venice has both problems, and the sinking ground problem is slower than the rising water problem. Here is an article about Venice's issues, including their solution to beef up their existing lagoon to give protection from sea level.

About the Metric thing... yeah, we do use Metric System, but many people here in /. don't (tired of reading posts with mph here and feet and inches there and so on), so - if you go to Rome, do like the Romans :)
But the Romans use metric now ;-) I highly recommend using Metric here, even if others aren't. Americans won't be helped by coddling them. :-)

In the US, we do use some metric: many bottled beverages are sold using metric units, so are most illegal drugs. I expect, any day now, gas stations to realise that selling gasoline by the liter will mean customers will have less sticker shock about the rising gas prices.

You're not from USA, are you?
Nope, from New York City.

Even the Exxon oil spill and Iraq oil fires were fixable.

The lagoons didn't break, but they did flood and overflow in the wake of Hurricane Floyd in '99. This article has an aerial view of a farm covered with liquid hog waste. Nass-tee.

This should do wonders for solar flight, like the ESA's solar plane, and the research into cheaper-than-satellite technologies for signal rebroadcasting, like here.

And the problem is still ongoing. It's not like people are pulling these numbers out of their ass, in 30 years we have managed to take out 15% of all the rain forests in Brazil. That's not opinion, there were 2 million square miles of forest when we started, 85% of it remains. You can see deforestation from space. You can drive along and see where forest was and grazeland, farmland, or (more often) wasteland is today.

The problem is bad enough that Brazil's government is concerned. It is only active law enforcement that keeps commercial interests from denuding the forest at a faster rate. That again, is not opinion of the some nature head. This is from Brazil's own government. You know, the people that live there.

The jump to link this observed creation of ozone with the popularly held belief that power lines adversely affect health is erroneous.

In the original study which created the popular myth that power lines cause illness, the authors correctly found a correlation between living in the proximity of power lines and leukemia rates but never found causation. After much debate it was revealed years later that traffic density has an even greater correlation with the observed leukemia rates and provides a well understood and now obvious causation -- pollution. It just happens that power lines exist in areas of greater traffic density. Unfortunately, the general public was never copied on the second corrected paper and to this day believe that power lines have adverse health effects, when they instead should be worried about pollution from traffic.

Although the article states that the creation of ozone around power lines could be a health risk, the quantity of ozone created for various transmission structures is never quantified and nor compared with ambient urban polution. Thus at worst it is yet another vehicle for the propagation of a scientific urban legend or at best a warning to shut of indoor air ionizers whose output of ozone can lead to concentrations in excess those present of ambient pollution levels.

Michael.

Actually, if you look at it, any good article on technology would rarely contain elements of science fiction.

The truth is, a lot of good technology out there is largely harmless.

Sure, grey-goo is likely to happen. However, its as likely to happen as some random evil person in the world would get hold of a dirty bomb to wipe out half the world and hold us at ransom.

Everytime I see people ranting about nano-tech, nuclear energy or global warming, this is what puts me off.

The truth is, Nuclear Energy when done properly is a perfectly safe and nice resource. Unfortunately, most people do not realize this.

We're at the end of an ice-age. Ofcourse the world will be getting hotter. And there is nothing to be so alarmed as to predict apocalypse because of this.

Take a look at these folks -- they make it sound like nano-tech is the Next Worst Thing (tm). Or read this article -- the risks mentioned there are likely to happen in a million professions that are out there today.


What if the tiny, man-made particles accumulate in the liver or lungs? she asks.


Well, how about people working in the chip-manufacturing industry? Those who deal with asbestos? Miners? This is true for each one of those professions.

The article says that --

But studies have also shown that nanoparticles can act as poisons in the environment and accumulate in animal organs. And the first two studies of the health effects of engineered nanoparticles, published in January, have documented lung damage more severe and strangely different than that caused by conventional toxic dusts.

Well, there are enough studies to prove that exposure to Nuclear Radiation is harmful. And enough studies to prove that inhalation of particulate silicon or asbestos could kill you.

That does not mean we cannot have safe and effective use of Nuclear Energy or of other stuff. Likewise for nano-tech.

When done properly, nano-tech can be really beneficial. Sure, there is every possibility that there will be some accidents or disasters -- but these would largely be because of the callousness and immaturity of the people involved, not the technology.

Technology does not kill people, people do :)

Mercury: Overplayed or Overstated?
DDT: Controls Malaria which kills over a million people per year. and is a major killer of children under 5.
Dioxin: A baddie, But was it truly necessary to evacuate people?
Asbestos: Only things I saw was people complaining about others getting money for 'exposure' while showing no detrimental health effects.

This is old news. These may be other glowing fish, as they are from Taiwan, but you can get the details
Here or here

As long as the power industry is dominated by the large investors who currently dominate the industry, there will never be a "natural" economy with a supply/demand that will adjust naturally. Despite deregulation, we are moving in a direction where consolidation of power suppliers and overly powerful electric resellers will be able to create a false scarcity of electrical power like we saw a few years ago in California

Micro suppliers could aleviate the conditions that led to the massive blackouts that we observed to day by placing cleaner, smaller, and more efficient power sources closer to where the electricity is being used. This would also make our national electric grid more resistant to terrorist attacks by distributing power generation, make localities less dependant on the owners of long distance transmission lines, allow homeowners the option of choosing power from the grid or from thier natural gas feul cells (in the basement) depending on which comodity has a more reasonable price, allow municipalities to reduce the cost of sewage treatment by turning sewage into natural gas or electric, and allow family owned farms to reduce costs and supplement thier agricultural incomes by selling electricity generated either by windmills or from natural gas from thier animal waste

Fuel cells are more efficient (85% of the energy contained in the natural gas converted to electric as opposed to 35% to 45%) and cleaner (natural gas fuel cells give off only water and CO2, no CO) than burning natural gas or oil for power generation.

A micro supplier market will decentralize the electrical generation market making power delivery more reliable and less vulnerable to outages, and will place natural, market based controls on energy costs by reducing the ability of large power companies and resellers (remember Enron?) to create a "false scarcity" in the market.

Maybe "us Yanks" make more of the pollution because we actually do stuff, you know, like make things and run a strong economy? I suppose we could all go live in mud huts with our thumbs up our asses and congratulate ourselves on our moral purity while we starve (and there would still be a faction complaining about how we were ruining the riverbank by collecting mud for our huts) but I say, you first. You don't seem to be in a hurry to give up modern technology since you apparently have a computer and internet access, but that means you are probably in something like the wealthiest and most polluting 1/100% of humanity. And as far as "screwing the environment" goes, are you aware that infant mortality and life expectancy have improved everywhere over the last century, in the "developing world" more than in the "first world"? And that large parts of the "Western world" are significantly cleaner than they were 50 years ago? (For example, wild salmon have returned to Scotland's River Clyde.) If that's "screwing the environment", let's have more of it. I realize that believing that EVIL POLLUTERS ARE DESTROYING THE WORLD!!! is more exciting than looking at the mixed and confusing picture the real world presents, but come on, put down the Paul Ehrlich book and the bong.

EMP is supposed to be fun, too. I've never been, but I've heard good things.

The rest of the state:
Washington state is very ecologically diverse. You've got rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula, more temperate climate in the Seattle area, the mountains (which are beautiful), and then the central and eastern parts of the state are desert. The San Juan islands are an excellent destination, especially if you wanted to do some sea kayaking.
There are some good wineries in the south central part of the state, and one of the biggest wind farms down by Walla Walla.

i'm not really against GM foods/things in general; it is pretty close to breeding. it gets a little stickier when we move genes between species, but probably no big deal. i'm not terribly worried about the destruction of the planet. not from that, anyway.

the part that bothers me is related to the crap that Monsanto pulls, for example suing a Canadian farmer for patent infringement because (the farmer says) pollen from Monsanto's plants blew into his farm and contaminated his canola. now his canola is infringing and he has to pay Monsanto $100,000. he is appealing to the Canadian supreme court. here's a link for you, but it might be some whack-job enviro-nut site, i don't know much about them, just found the article.

things in that article, like this:

"Researchers at the University of Manitoba are shortly to publish findings that 32 of 33 supposedly GE-free seed lots in Canada were contaminated by as much as 5 percent genetically engineered seed."

are a little frightening on multiple levels. first, they are already having a lot of trouble keeping their Round-Up-resistant seed and pollen contained, which is not encouraging, and second, because it means the wind can make everyone infringe on Monsanto's patents, opening up random farmers to lawsuits against a corporate giant. i also read about an organic farmer in... I want to say Washington or Oregon, who had her crops contaminated with the same Monsanto Round-Up resistant pollen. so the seed she has been using and saving for years is now contaminated, to an extent, and of course she's now infringing on their patents if she continues to be a farmer using her seeds. i'm not sure what the solution to this problem is, exactly. it is tricky.

so, i realize i probably don't have the same concerns over GM food that some people do, but i do think there are some valid concerns. i would like to add that a glowing zebra fish would kick some ass, though.

I might as well take a crack at this too (and I got a "C" in high school chemistry because I insisted on lighting up th acetylene ballons we used in the Gas Density lab...)

To focus on water's phase changes as a heat sink is to miss the point. Surface water is not a major component of Earth's mass, so its ability to smooth out temperature variations as a 'thermal capacitor' would on the face of it be not very significant when compared to the mass of Earth as a whole.

Another fallacy is that the Earth is a closed system. It's not: Earth not only takes in energy from the Sun but it also radiates energy back into space. I should mention that solar radiation isn't the only heat source either: radioactive decay also heats the Earth's core.

Once you understand this, then you appreciate the very reason greenhouse gases are called such: they trap this radiation like the walls of a greenhouse.

The size of the polar ice caps is a reflection of the average Earth temperature, not the other way around. Its effect on mean sea level is an indicator of mean temperature, but it certainly isn't the only one (how about the mean temperature itself?)

More interesting to me is the potential effect of increased water vapor in the air, itself a greenhouse gas. Would it have a positive reinforcing effect on a temperature rise, whether it be due to increased CO2, solar radiation, or cow flatuence? On first glance this phenomenon seems to be not well understood.

Another idea I don't see tossed about much is biological equilibria having influence on CO2 levels. It seems quite reasonable that increased CO2 levels and temperatures would increase the biomass (especially in plankton) and thus the drawdown of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Global climate is a complicated thing. Unfortuantely it is complicated further by global politics....

- dvd_tude

ENN - Environmental News Network (complete with banner ads for Shell Oil, no less. :-) This excerpt is slightly misleading since this particular study mostly used ground station data, but compensating for the urban heat island effect.

"A clear pattern of global warming is emerging as American space scientists analyze satellite data from more than 7,000 weather stations around the world.

The layer of air that wraps the Earth is indeed warmer than it has been in the past, according to Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and Marc Imhoff of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 25 percent since the early 1800s. Climatologists at the Goddard Space Flight Center estimate the increase since 1958 has been about 10 percent. Currently the level of atmospheric C02 is increasing at a rate of about 0.4 percent a year."

Also ENN, but a different study.

" Some reports have pointed to a link between recent warming and rising emissions of greenhouse gases. According to a University of Michigan study, the last century was the warmest of the previous five.

The new data, collected by two orbiting spacecraft, is consistent with theoretical simulations that have raised concerns over so-called "radiative forcing" of the climate as a result of human emissions of gases thought to cause global warming, scientists said. Radiative forcing is a measure of the climate effect of greenhouse gases.

This is the first direct observation of the effect over an extended time frame, said lead study author John Harries of the Department of Physics at Imperial College in London.

The researchers analyzed the spectra of Earth's outgoing long-wave radiation, which carries the signature of the planet's cooling to space.

The noted differences point to a significant increase in Earth's greenhouse effect and provide the first direct observational evidence for changes in the radiative forcing of Earth's climate over the past 20 years, the authors said."

has concluded that strong evidence exists to show an "undoubtedly real" warming of Earth's surface over the last 20 years -- even if satellites and weather balloons show little or no warming five miles up."

Nevertheless, there's a lot of uncertainty going on with regards to the causes of the warming. What I think we can agree on is that some weird shit is happening with our weather and we should try our best to figure out what, why and how to stop it, or if that's impossible, how to adapt to it. Sticking your head in the sand and claiming that there is no problem is simply not an option.

What the developed countries SHOULD do is not to try and maintain the current level of technology with regards to oil-burning motor vehicles and other wasteful resource hogs. This will not end well, if not else for the simple reason that the developing countries also will want these commodities and they will be able to produce them themselves (more and more products are being made in developing nations with low wages). If we take the tech to the next level, we will still be able to sell them our stuff and/or knowledge. Besides, no one has yet started a war to get at another's hydrogen reserves...

ENN - Environmental News Network (complete with banner ads for Shell Oil, no less. :-) This excerpt is slightly misleading since this particular study mostly used ground station data, but compensating for the urban heat island effect.

"A clear pattern of global warming is emerging as American space scientists analyze satellite data from more than 7,000 weather stations around the world.

The layer of air that wraps the Earth is indeed warmer than it has been in the past, according to Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and Marc Imhoff of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 25 percent since the early 1800s. Climatologists at the Goddard Space Flight Center estimate the increase since 1958 has been about 10 percent. Currently the level of atmospheric C02 is increasing at a rate of about 0.4 percent a year."

Also ENN, but a different study.

" Some reports have pointed to a link between recent warming and rising emissions of greenhouse gases. According to a University of Michigan study, the last century was the warmest of the previous five.

The new data, collected by two orbiting spacecraft, is consistent with theoretical simulations that have raised concerns over so-called "radiative forcing" of the climate as a result of human emissions of gases thought to cause global warming, scientists said. Radiative forcing is a measure of the climate effect of greenhouse gases.

This is the first direct observation of the effect over an extended time frame, said lead study author John Harries of the Department of Physics at Imperial College in London.

The researchers analyzed the spectra of Earth's outgoing long-wave radiation, which carries the signature of the planet's cooling to space.

The noted differences point to a significant increase in Earth's greenhouse effect and provide the first direct observational evidence for changes in the radiative forcing of Earth's climate over the past 20 years, the authors said."

has concluded that strong evidence exists to show an "undoubtedly real" warming of Earth's surface over the last 20 years -- even if satellites and weather balloons show little or no warming five miles up."

Nevertheless, there's a lot of uncertainty going on with regards to the causes of the warming. What I think we can agree on is that some weird shit is happening with our weather and we should try our best to figure out what, why and how to stop it, or if that's impossible, how to adapt to it. Sticking your head in the sand and claiming that there is no problem is simply not an option.

What the developed countries SHOULD do is not to try and maintain the current level of technology with regards to oil-burning motor vehicles and other wasteful resource hogs. This will not end well, if not else for the simple reason that the developing countries also will want these commodities and they will be able to produce them themselves (more and more products are being made in developing nations with low wages). If we take the tech to the next level, we will still be able to sell them our stuff and/or knowledge. Besides, no one has yet started a war to get at another's hydrogen reserves...

Water Vapor is a greenhouse gas

This task will be a lot more possible as years pass. Why?

According to this, in 100 years, there will be about half as many species on earth as there are now. We're actually in the middle of the biggest extinction epidemic since the dinosaurs died out.

Scratch that - according to this other site, this is actually the fastest mass extinction in earth's history. The fact that most people don't know about this is made even more strange by the fact that this extinction epidemic is man-made.

We should screw with the weather.

Any undesired ramifications can be swept under the rug as effects of "global warming", which can easily be curtailed by passing laws restricting carbon dioxide emissions which can be controlled by reducing the size of automobile engines and/or increasing hunting limits on larger animals, such as elephants.

I guess I'm really digressing here, as even talking about such consequences is irrational. Changing the "weather" every day couldn't possibly result in a "climate" change.

While the difference of 5 to 10 degrees may not sound like much given the range of temperatures that we experience in Europe or North America just in a single day much less throughout the year, an average drop of 5 to 10 degrees is very significant and would create agricultural havok.

Crop plants are very sensitive to climative changes and have particular temperature/rainfall ranges in which they thrive. Make the local weather a little too hot, a little too cold, a little too wet or a little too dry and suddenly your fruit trees fail to produce, your vegetables wilt and your grains fail to pests, if they growq at all. Minor changes in the average temperature greatly effects the success of fungus and insects in damaging crops, allowing them to spread into new regions.

To put this into better perspective, during the peak of the last ice age, 18,000 to 20,000 years ago, the average temperature in was about 9 to 12F cooler than today. Even an average change half of that would create dramatic changes in natural plant distribution.

During the so called Little Ice Age from 1650-1850, a 3F temperature drop caused serious crop failure in Europe, leading to famine and disease. And that is just a 3F degree average drop.

Animals are also effected my temperature changes. Here on the Pacific NW coast, salmon require stream temperatures to be within a very delicate range in order to spawn. This is why cutting down trees (which shade the streams) causes a decline in salmon runs. That's just one of many examples.

Humans are much more adaptable to climate change than most other plants and animals. But with 6 billion+ mouths to feed, its not quite clear how we'd adapt to a climatic problem of this kind of scale.

As for the ocean conveyor belt, it naturally seems to have some tiny warming and cooling cycles which in turn effect rainfall and storm formation in many parts of the world. For a nice overview, go here: Climate Rides on Ocean Conveyor Belt. Over the past century+ a 20-year cycle of minor warming and cooling has been found in the conveyor belt, and supposedly the conveyor belt should be in a strong cycle right now, based of previous trends. But is it?

If global warming (natural cycles or man-made) causes too much melting of the Greenland glaciers, all of that extra fresh water poses quite a risk to the ocean conveyor belt.

Perhaps what we should be saying about the steady warming that has happened over the past 150 years is "enjoy it while it lasts."

The post that I responded to was talking about 'native forms' of life on venus, not transplanted ones.

Besides, many of those bacteria are extremely hardy. They can withstand both hard vacuum and cosmic rays and still remain viable. We sent some up on a satellite a few years ago and bacteria were able to survive fine with just a little soil for protection.

I brought this issue up in an article I submitted - but was rejected by the editors.

You are correct in that space has been deemed "The province of all Mankind" - however these are flawed human beings we are talking about here.

The problems we will see with going into space is claims to resources - and the protection of those claims. At this point it is set to be that only the companies that can pay off big governments, or are run by big governments - will be "allowed" access rights to resources.

There was an article talking about how mars might be the wild west of the future (it is very short - but you can extrapolate in your head) which brings up interesting points about how territories will be handled. this article is much longer on the same subject. It says "MAN'S conquest of the planets could become a Wild West in space if privately funded expeditions are the first to open up the final frontier, experts claimed yesterday." this is *absolute* crap - its a scare tactic, this thinking will lead to such things as "UN space territories and resources allocation commitee" or some such thing.

Although it might sound good on paper to have some body who is responsible for handing out deeds to land and resource rights on other-than-earth bodies, the problems with a commitee of any sort like this is that their interests will be heavily biased by the corporations and governments that already have huge financial weight over world economies and UN budgets today. This means that the likely industry to aggressively go after domination of space resource rights would be the oil industry.

They know that fossil fuels will run out someday... and they have shit loads of money and political might. Just look at the top levels of american government - every single one off them is a corrupt oil puppet.

I think that things should be done now to ensure that the resources in space are not "owned" by any company - or "licensed" to some company for a rediculous amount of time like 150 years....