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Global Warming Expected to Intensify Hurricanes
DoraLives writes "Think this hurricane season was bad? Well according to the New York Times, a study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate indicating that warming ocean temperatures are going to make for stronger, wetter hurricanes in the coming years and decades. An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.' Oh joy."
Rock you like a hurricane.
Karma: Terrible - and proud of it!
GNAA introduces first open-source corpse
GNAP [Gay Nigger Associated Press], ASSEVILLERS, FRANCE - In a move that is sure to redefine the open source community of the future, Gay Nigger Association of America (News | Websites) introduced the first open source corpse after the untimely death of Hans Bakker.
Bakker, a developer for the OpenBSD project, which preceded him in death, was travelling back to Paris after the SANE conference. Unfortunately, known hippie and NAMBLA member Richard Stallman had been dropped off at his hotel and was not in the car when a truck made the first contribution to Bakker's corpse's CVS by merging into it at high speed. Bakker's death was confirmed immediately via IRC by his virtual girlfriend.
The instant the opened skull was declared in the public domain, GNAA member Gary Niger annointed it with Holy Gay Nigger Seed to ensure a smooth passage into the afterlife and robust continued development. Thrusting rhythmically into the still-warm and pulsing brain of the dying man, Gary shouted "FUCK BSD; BSD IS DYING; BSD SUCKS; BSD IS DEAD TO ME; BSD DID WTC LOL" before exploding in orgasmic waves of pleasure as the sensitive nerves at the tip of his penis made contact with Bakker's last semi-conscious thoughts.
Associated bacteria immediately lined up to make their contributions, as did several nearby flies hoping to raise families of open source maggots. However, CmdrTaco of Slashdot, a known scene gadfly and AZT addict, flopped heavily into the area while loudly proclaiming first dibs on the rectum. In response, #GNAA attendee GasJews challenged him. "Tell that fag CmdrTaco that I've got first dibs on this dead anus," he said, "and that I'm going to beat him down, then fuck him tenderly all night long," said GasJews, liberally spraying Holy Gay Nigger Seed over the EMS personnel and local French police, who were delighted.
Since the 1990s, open source has been a popular way of developing free software for the general public, maintained by teams of pimply nerds with angst at their utter uselessness outside of the imaginary world of computers and networks. Much like a religion, it requires absolute obedience to its concept and encourages contributors to vehemently rail against any software which actually functions, including Microsoft's popular Windows operating system.
The future of Open Source Hans Baker Corpse (OSHBC) remains to be determined as the development team is still being assembled. Using the Concurrent Versions System (CVS), developers will be able to modify the corpse to refine its function as a BSD-analogue, something made easier by the fact that both are dead. All interested developers are encouraged to contact the OSHBC project at http://sourceforge.net/.
About Hans Bakker
Hans Bakker was a lowly BSD developer who like many sought to replace a real world life with online presence as a feeble justification that he was "doing something" about the world's dire situation. Most of his days were spent on IRC, flirting with fat girls who had once gone through a gothic phase before deciding on Lesbianism, at which point the resounding lack of attention nearly starved them. Read more at his unfinished closed-source site, http://www.hans.cx.
About Assevillers
Assevillers, France, is a small town of population 228 in the gorgeous pastel-colored French countryside. During WWII, it was home to several prostitutes who slept with occupying Germans, recognizing the dominant cocks of these very hetero warriors as the future of France, which has been a bottom since roughly AD 1250. The French people have fought many wars during that time and have won none of them, distingu
~~~~ "For a gay universe!"
Look out florida...
Perhaps this is nature's way of saying "I hate you."
Problem solved...
See Here
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Even the most complicated computer models for weather systems can only approach less than 5% of the actual variability and density of the atmosphere. Consider that most forecasts are less than 50% accurate at 48hrs+. I am not dismissing the research, far from it, I just don't think the models are there yet.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Maybe when Jeb has to invest in scuba gear, that would be a good time to finally believe in global warming?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The environment seems to solve the Bush problem at least in Florida itself.
I'm really sad that residents of Florida, Cuba, Haiti, and all those other hurricane-hit places will have to face more severe and more frequent hurricanes in the future. However, global warming is bigger than just Florida; as terrible as extra hurricanes are, this just might be the wake up call that the rest of the world (especially those of us in non-Kyoto countries) needs to really appreciate the significance of global warming. Maybe now people will realize that global warming isn't an issue put forth by tree-hugging hippies, but rather a serious concern with serious implications.
If you think Florida had it bad, they don't even know how many thousands of people died in Haiti yet, they'll have to dig through the mud to find the bodies. Once they get food that is...
The estimates are one or two thousand dead these days.
You can't take the sky from me...
I think that this, once again, shows the faliure of closed source.
If we had access to the source code for the weather module, we wouldn't have to wait for god to fix the bug, do some sort of mediocre quality control, and then release it after 6 months.
Democrats blaming Bush in 5, 4, 3, 2 ...
(Kerry voted against the Kyoto agreement in the Senate in 1998)
I'm currently living in Florida, and let me tell you what we had this season was bad. If in the future, we're going to have these types of hurricanes on even a stronger level we're going to lose a lot of tourism.
This year our damages are estimated at $18 billion because of the hurricanes (that's $3 billion more then Andrew). I can only imagine how much we will loose if we get stronger and more frequent hurricanes.
the hurricanes have been nothing more than intense storms when they make it up to my area (Philadelphia), but they have made a mess. just this last week all over PA, DE and NJ had lots of mess i watched on the local news. there was a few feet of mud from runoff on I-76 just outside the city. they had to get people off a bus using an xtension ladder from the other side of the road (the jersey wall acted like a dam). in all 30 cars and one bus were destroyed. countless houses and stores flodded out. sinkholes all over the place opening up. a lady was killed in the city because the water coming down the sidewalk was so strong it knocked her over and washed her down the street, she got stuck under a car and by the time people pulled her up she had drowned!
In other news, the State of Florida has changed its name to State of Emergency.
An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms
That's not a conclusion. That's a hypothesis. When they conclude 'greenhouse gas-induced warming probably lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms' or something equally as strong, let me know.
I mean, anyone with the slightest knowledge of the subject could have you told that this _may_ happen. What's needed is someone to get a good idea of how likely it is to be true.
There is someone who blames Jeb Bush instead.
Personally, I'm thinking its the burning bush that has something to do with it...
I've been wondering for a while already how long it takes until somebody IN THE US realizes this possible connection... maybe one should distribute a short summary of the findings as leaflet in Florida the day before the elections... :o)
But Bush said that greenhouse effect was nonsense!
Even the Bush administration has issued reports saying that global temperatures should rise about 4 degrees over the next century (independent studies say it's more like 10). Global warming is technically a theory, but it's one of the best supported and widely believed in the scientific community. Whether or not humans have played a part in it is up for debate, though. Quick side note: since the last ice age, 1 degree/100 year increase is generally regarded as a fast temperature increase.
Back on topic, any rapid change in climate is going to have some major natural disasters, be it hurricanes or undue rain or even prolonged drought, depending on the area. It's not going to be like that movie where everything happens at once and tidal waves are suddenly racing through manhattan, but florida isn't the only place in for a rough time.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
Do you know how many senators voted not to ratify the treaty?
98 out of 100. Two senators did not vote.
So even John Kerry voted not to ratify Kyoto. Hell, even fathead Ted Kennedy did. Because it's not about "the environment", it's about shackling the economies of the west. And if you look deeper, you will see the huge trade concessions made to Russia (by EU member states) in order for them to sign.
Apparently, 98 senators who are normally split along party lines figured that one out. There's 1+1=2 for you.
Check out Mother of Storms by John Barnes. EXACTLY this theory was the premise of the book... though taken to it's extreme, of course. :-)
Anyone who doubts that climate change is going on, put your money where your mouth is and buy a home in Florida. If you're right, you will make money on the house and if you're wrong your home will be washed away by storm surge. Either way, you're at least gambling with your own life and property, which is more than I can say for doubters who live in Wyoming (yes I mean Cheney).
I for one welcome our new jungle producing tropical Overlords! There...somebody had to say it!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
The U.S. didn't ratify Kyoto, therefore hurricanes?
What if the U.S. had signed, but Russia hadn't? Would the hurricanes be Russia's fault?
Your mastery of simple addition is impressive, but I don't think you have any understanding of how the weather works.
Nice burn on SUVs, though! So at least your post wasn't a total failure.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"Hotter summers, colder winters, and more intense hurricanes. But we can't rule out a sudden (say, within a century) plunge into a little ice age, if the ice caps at the poles melt, causing the earth to lose too much albedo from the loss of the reflective ice caps. Also, glacial runoff from Greenland could stop the warming North Atlantic current and make northern Europe uninhabitable, like in the last big ice age, which ended 11,000 years ago."
So far he's been right. Not that that's a good thing.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
The problem is that the Kyoto treaty is by far not enough. The Kyoto treaty was not even enough at the time of the ratification.
See more problems chugging along, in europe we have felt the impact of global warming almost since 1985 when the winters from one year to the next suddenly had much less snow. These things dont usually become worse gradually and slowly but basically from one year to the next, then things seddle for a while and then wham, the next smack.
Well I see it as a real sign of god (not the one Bush seems to believe to talk to) that Florida was one of the most devastated states this year so, that the Bush familiy in general gets a lousy feeling on what the environment thinks about their politics.
The funny thing is that the USA probably would have very easy ways to save much more energy than the kyoto treaty. From what I could see the USAs one family homes have a lousys system of preserve warmth within their walls. The constructions over here in europe are much more sophisticated in this regard (the problem and saving energy has been a big issue for a long time over here)
The people have to cut down on big cars, which they probably will never need. Face it, there already exists cars which suck 6 liters (about 1 1/2 gallons) / 100kms and much more.
Cut down on those dreaded air conditions, cut down on the power consumption of computers and so on.
All those things can be done without hurting the industry. Give tax returns on measures which add heat saving mechanisms to the average homes.
Do the taxing system according to the consumption of the cars and so on.
Bushs plan was to kick the kyoto treaty and let Enron decide what to do. Aka build more nuclear plants which yet still have an unresolved waste problem.
there is no evidence of this nonsense called global warming.
Other than a general increasing trend in recorded temperatures over recent years. Sure, it isn't conclusive evidence (we don't know that this wouldn't be happening naturally without our intervention), but it is evidence.
I don't know if human-induced global warming is a problem or not, but, there are points of view out there, from highly respected scientists, that argue that it is not a problem. Here is one such article. Having a life-long interest in weather, I've tried to read both sides and both sides make compelling arguments. To the extent that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot economically and otherwise, it is probably a good idea to err on the side of believing that human-induced global warming is a problem. However, I don't see anything productive in blaming Bush or any previous president, republican or democrat for global warming. It is a hellish complicated problem and the ramifications for choosing either side are not small.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I did not know this
My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
"If people kick the shrub out, the US will stand a better chance at ratifying the Kyoto accord and remove the wasteful SUVs from the roads."
Kerry voted against the Kyoto treaty. oh, I'm sorry, you actually expect either the Green or Independant party candidates to be serious contenders for the Office of President of the United states.
By the way, SUVs aren't the problem, combustion engines that burn fossil fuels are. SUVs that run off Biodeisel are every bit as eco-friendly as little "roller skates" that currently get 50+ MPG. SUVs that run off hydrogen will be every bit as eco-friendly as well.
Just for the record, hurricane season lasts until the end of November.
This (more hurricanes) comes as a surprise to anyone? The atmosphere is a heat engine. You put more heat energy in, you get more wind energy out. It's as simple as that. Of course you're going to get more high wind events. In the Carribean, you call those Hurricanes.
What's bemusing to a European eye is that it seems to be the places which are most likely to be devastated by global warming that are most likely to vote for Bush.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Jokes about Al Gore aside, one possible outcome of global warming is the deep sea currents changing their course. One of them, the gulf stream, veers off completely in the model, leading to a projected dramatic temperature drop in Europe... have you ever wondered why the UK/France/Germany are so far north compared with US locations of similar warm climate?
"Think this hurricane season was bad?"
It's not over yet, is it? There could be more hurricanes in the next 8 weeks.
Senator Bush blocked it back in '98. That's why it's his fault we didn't approve it.
Rachel Carson's Silent Wang. A story where everyone in Florida died, but nobody gave a shit.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
With the way people are blaming everything else in the world on Bush.. I'm surprised.
Bush is getting part of the blame for it, and rightfully so. President Bush and his advisers maintain that reducing emissions through costly near-term measures is unjustified. The White House argues that forecasting climate change is too imprecise to agree to long-term, international, mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
In April of 2001, ten of the world's most prominent citizens wrote a letter (published in Time magazine) urging President George W. Bush to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas produced by the United States. Signatories included Stephen Hawking, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Senator John Glenn, Walter Cronkite, George Soros, and Jane Goodall. The letter was initiated by Charles Alexander, environment editor of "Time," while he was collaborating on the magazine's project to explore the scientific evidence for the existence and extent of global warming and the political furor over Bush's withdrawal of U.S. support for the Kyoto climate protocol after nine years of international negotiations.
Actor Harrison Ford, who is a board member of Conservation International, signed as did J. Craig Venter who decoded the human genome. Venerable zoologist, ecologist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward O. Wilson added the weight of his signature.
Bush apparently round-filed the letter.
Gee, doesn't that sound like he should be shouldering some of the blame?
He cancelled the Kyoto agreement so he actually is to blame to some degree.
Help fight continental drift.
An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms
What make you think it was cheerfully concluded? Did they end the paper with a smiley?
-Colin
One important thing to remember is that this is nothing the planet hasn't seen before. Things have gotten no worse than they were 200 million years ago. There have been plenty of studies in dendrochronology that prove this and that while the earth might be heating up, its nothing the planet can't handle.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
It's not a bug, it's a feature ;)
Brrrt. No credible scientist has yet come out and stated that the miniscule amounts of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere is in any way a significant factor for global warming. Nature puts more of the other green house gasses into the atmosphere than all of human activity to date. So it seems that we're back to the obvious; the cause of global warming is (drums please) the SUN!
this year is bad simply because it is a election year...that is right, I said it: presidential election is a major contributor to global warming...perhaps if we change the presidential election to once every 40 years, we could save billions in disaster prevention along!
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
you mean, there is no evidence that Dubya will admit to.
... which has since been clearly proven.
.. someone who gets great benefit through the selling of greenhouse gas producing Oil, hmmm and Dubya is someone who would benefit greatly from high oil prices produced by pinching world oil reserves through destabilizing oil markets with the false fear of terrorism, and by taking the Iraq supply off the market.
In fact there is much much evidence, that perhaps you have chosen not to see.
Funny how Dubya can invade Iraq, killing 10's of thousands of innocent civilians, and over a 1000 americans on NO ACCURATE EVIDENCE of there ever being ANY WMD's in Iraq
yet at the same time, he can totally ignore the decades of research that show the world is getting warmer (whether or not its by our own hand).
hmmm coincedentally, Dubya is an Oil man
damn I dont know why you Bushies can't see the damage Bush has done for his own personal greed. Instead you blindly follow him, ignorantly thinking he's saving you.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
by consuming as we do now, we make it easier for our children to generate energy using giant windtraps.
Global warming is also responsible for ending every ice age (including the one that we're still in the tail end of). I'll take global warming over global cooling, thank you much.
Not a problem.
I don't live anywhere near Florida, so I don't see any reason not to continue driving the Landrover.
Deleted
could care less about you thinking that the models aren't there yet.
for summarizing "the day after tomorrow" for us
The cause of global warming is most likely the sun. The sun has been burning hotter recently than it used to.
e ws/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/i xnewstop.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
It does make sense. The sun provides pretty much all of the heat on our planet, so if it is hotter, the earth is hotter.
I for one welcome our meteorologically stupendous phenomena lords...
(Sorry Florida, guess it's back to being a marsh again.)
Sorry, but your figures about the seante vote are far from correct and the purpose of Kyoto sure as hell is not to shackle the economies of the west.
If the later were the case, do you really think that all the economies of the west were in favor of it with the notable exception of the US?
Please, oh please stop with calling it "Global Warming" already. Humans effects on the climate will NOT lead to universally higher temperatures. From the best we can tell it will instead lead to greater variance in most places around the globe, including these severe storms, droughts, floods, and even more snowstorms in certain places. It is my pet peeve when it's referred to as "Global Warming" because then people who don't know what they're talking about (but still vote and drive SUV's) think there's no problem every time we have a cooler than average summer. Global climate change *is* a serious problem and having half the population ignore it because "damn, it didn't get hotter than 70 the last week in august" doesn't help.
Call it whatever the hell you want.
... and one that many fools on this board have chosen to ignore as being proof even as they board up their houses 3 or 4 times a season against hurricanes, where in the past it was only once every few years.
It is still happening.
Increased storm activity and severity is just one symptom.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Bah. I'm ready. I beat Midwinter on the Amiga, real life can't be much harder... right?
If people kick the shrub out, the US will stand a better chance at ratifying the Kyoto accord and remove the wasteful SUVs from the roads.
Bzzzzt. Wrong. (unless you're not referring to John Kerry being Bush's replacement)
As reported in the IHT and other news sources, John Kerry has made a point that he will not be getting the US back into Kyoto. This should come as no surprise. As a senator, he voted against allowing the department of the interior to fund implementation of the Kyoto protocols. On the campaign trail, he has made a point that he will fix the current rising gas prices. As the Kyoto protocols are widely estimated to cause a huge increase (as high as 30%) in national gas prices, implementing the protocol would while lowering gas prices, or even keeping them where they are, would be impossible.
(On a side note, though I hate to use the f-word here (flip-flop), in his 2003 document John Kerry's Comprehensive Vision for a Clean Environment, A Stronger Economy, Healthier Communities, his campaign claims "Dropping out of international implementation of the Kyoto Protocol was foolhardy then, and it is even more obviously foolhardy today.")
There is a popular feeling that goes something like "Bush single handedly killed Kyoto." This is absurd. Clinton couldn't get it ratified in 1997 because everyone in congress, including people from his own party (yes, even John Kerry), refused to even consider voting for it. In fact, it was only signed because Al Gore disregarded the resolution of the senate he was supposed to be in charge of. Bush's decision to not re-submit the treaty to congress for ratification was, frankly, a formality; there is no way he could have gotten congress to ratify it, even if he supported it (and he clearly doesn't).
Though I would love to see green house gas emissions get lower, the fact remains that the Kyoto protocol, as it stands, would be economic suicide for the United States, and odds are essentially zero we'll ever see it ratified
We can just move to Mars where the heat isn't a problem. In fact, on Mars all our environmentally unfriendly activities well help to increase the tempurature to livable. Problem solved.
-Tim Louden
I don't want it to be true so I'll better close my eyes and hope it will go away. That seems to be the attitute of a lot of posters and mods here.
Some complain that science can't predict what will happen with 100% certainty (I've got news for you, science rarely can) and take this as an excuse to ignore all the alarming research that's out there.
Others discart all this research as bogus anyway, claiming that no scientist worth his salt ever claimed that green house gases caused global warming. (I wonder how deep the holes can be some people chose to hide in)
Still others inform us that the sole purpose of the Kyoto agreement was to criple the western economies and get modded insightful for that. Never mind that it was the western economies including the US that pushed and developed the agreement.
Still others tell us that John Kerry also voted against the Kyoto agreement, as if this settled things and stoped global warming somehow.
I've got news for you people, no matter how hard you try to keep your eyes closed, the shit is still going to hit the fan and we better start to think what to do about it right here and right now.
"Bushs plan was to kick the kyoto treaty and let Enron decide what to do. Aka build more nuclear plants which yet still have an unresolved waste problem."
Their Senate voted 95-0 in 1998 not to ratify Kyoto. I can see how that is Bush's fault.
In France we produce 70% of our power from nuclear sources. Are you saying we are somehow corrupt from American Enron company? Perhaps you wish we would shut them down and buy oil from ME?
Because the reason for the current surge in temperature is mainly the greenhouse-gas sent into the air some decades ago.
And yes, for people in Germany (that's me) and France etc, it will be a very tough life, when the Gulf stream changes route and maybe leaves us with a climate like Hudson Bay or so.
What you can blame Bush of course is that he refused to acknowledge these effects even now (or back when he didn't want to sign the Kyoto Treaty)!
But then, it's hard to say what he really decides and what is prepared by other people and he just signs it - like with any politician.
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
I thought global warming caused colder mid-latitude temps. Isn't that what they said last winter? And didn't the 1940's have a lot of hurricanes? Certainly more than the 1990's.
Oh, wait, we would do that except for the fact that our so called "environment friendly" groups have declared that nuclear power is dangerous, despite the fact that is the only real way to cut down on greenhouse gases.
Say it after me: NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT PERFECT, BUT IT'S THE ONLY REALISTIC FORM OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY.
The media is claiming that Dubya won the first debate.
If the US population actually thinks this is true, then just give it all up, roll over and die.
Bush's ass was kicked severly in the debate, over and over. He sat there fidgeting, stumbling, stuttering, blinking like a psycho, trying to respond to Kerry, while Kerry calmly, confidently, and succintly rattled off how Bush has hurt the USA and the world.
Bush lied over and over, as if we all wouldnt see it, denying Kerry's proven statements. Yet the media wants bush in power and so reported differnetly.
You dumbasses will probably let the oilman play for another 4 years, killing your sons and daughters in Iraq so that he can profit from the high oil prices.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
that's nature's response to SUVs
WTF? Your being paranoid. Noone accused USA of being the fault of this.
If we want to find a source for the blame, China should be first on the list. China has let numerous coal fires burn out of control, becoming the number one source for carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
According to experts, 2% to 3% of CO2 emissions originate from this single source. Check this map out to see how widespread the problem is - literally all of northern China has fires raging uncontrolled and disregarded by the Chinese government. So what if the USA has more storms that kill its citizens - in fact, this is a good thing for China.
If only the Deep Atlantic Conveyer Belt would shut down so the colonialist European pigs would freeze to death. Then China would be the world's only superpower. Serves them right for all their meddling!!!
Before you jump on the human cause for global warming, I would suggest reading some articles and papers by John Christy. He is a very respected climatologist. He provides some very convincing counter arguements.
Moderators on crack!
Or, we could quit trying to blame everything on "global warming" and realize that hurricane severity is cyclical. Florida's been due for a couple of years now.
...whether or not we experience one of the pole reversals concurrently with a rapid heating trend. Then it's anyone's guess what will shake out.
Something I've noticed though, over the decades. When I was a kid, the sun looked a lot more yellow colored, now it's a lot more white colored. Wonder what that means...There's also a heck of a lot less wild birds then there used to be, and the trees in general all seem wimpy, not as robust and healthy as they could and should be. All very generally speaking of course..
We've also been experiencing some rather strange geomagnetic differences with the planet, from what I read it's reducing in intensity and moving around a lot more than it used to.
All interesting topics to be sure.
The polar regions ice melting though, is the most convincing to me of imminent severe global weather changes, you just can't fake or ignore how much the arctic and antarctic regions have been melting the past few years, you can see it with any subsequent series of pictures taken in the same areas, the stuff is melting, fast. It WILL have some profound effects on global weather patterns. And if the atlantic conveyor slows down or stops, there will be crash programs to burn more coal, burn more trees, burn more oil and tarsands stuff, and etc, etc, a lot more human activity which will lead to more greenhouse gases being released, which will lead to more environmental changes, and on and on.
Interesting times, glad I am a survivalist.
Having lived through the recent series of storms here in Florida I can say first hand it is not any fun. This is the worst set of storms that central Florida area has had in the 30 years I have been here. I am not looking forward to more hurricane seasons like this one. This season I fared fairly well. I had a generator and transfer switch installed to power the house. Did that back in February, great timing for me. Went many days without commercial power during the storms this year.
Global warming may be a major factor. It is debatable if humans are responsible for global warming or not. (I expect this to get me modded down by the tree huggers.) What people need to realize is that change in the environment is constant. The last couple of thousand years things have been mild enough for humans to not only remember how things have been in the past but allowed us to develop the scientific processes that have allowed us to understand a lot of what is going on. We don't understand it all but we are working on it.
The big thing is to recognize that the earth is not a static diorama that never changes. It has gone through major weather cycles in the past and will continue to do so until the ultimate when the Sun goes nova. I personally doubt that people have as big an effect on the climate as some would like us to believe.
As things change people will adapt or find ways to adapt the environment to them. It is the way it has always been. If people survive for the next 10,000 years then we might figure out how to control the weather patterns. But hopefully we will be smart enough by then to know that we should leave well enough alone. And by that time we should have established self sustaining colonies off planet. So if the Earth becomes less than hospitable for us we can continue else where.
Another thing to remember, is if and when we try to control the weather, and that includes trying to fix global warming, we are more than likely going to cause more problems than what we had to start with. Remember, the job will go to the lowest bidder. And I expect the weather control stations will have the normal set of defects and shoddy workmanship which will lead to break downs and control problems.
It's that warm ocean and gulf water that gives the hurricane its heartbeat. The warmer the water, the stronger it can get. That is assuming of course that it doesn't encouter any upper level troughs or other shearing mechanisms.
Now as far as global warming is concerned, you have to first look at the ITCZ (Intertropical Conversion Zone) aka the Equatorial Trough. Look where it's at. The equator is a hot place to begin with. Global warming is just going to make it sizzle some more.
Now take into account the F2 and occasional F3 tornadoes that hurricanes spawn. You can bet that those F2's and F3's are going to be more numerous thanks to global warming.
And it goes beyond the tropics. Remember that near F6 tornadoa that hit Oklahoma in 1999? It had 318 MPH winds. That's the very tail end of an F5. Thunderstorms are getting more severe and the tornadoes they're dropping are getting fiercer. True, population increase has result in more storms being reported, but the intensity cannot be denied.
... but
(A) given that it has not yet been established that there actually IS any long term warming due to green house gases or due to anything else for that matter (because nobody has measured it yet),
(B) and given that there's no conclusive evidence (measurements)that human activity is even a significant contribution to this as-yet unmeasured warming, much less causative,
(C) and given the amount of foul play there's been lately in the "scientific" community regarding the subject of warming (google up "Death Valley temperature sensor" for a giggle, or "urban heat island effect" or "hockey stick chart debunked" or "Bjorn Lomborg" maybe),
(D) perhaps the conclusions of aformentioned study may be a trifle premature. Possibly. Maybe.
We could even check the historical record and discover that this year's storms (although bad) were not extrordinary for the region in either number or severity, and that generally there are less such storms during the last 50 years than previously.
Or we could just go with it and scream DEATH TO THE SHRUB!!!
By all means, let us not cloud the issue with facts.
The first way to reduce green house gases is to cut down on energy consumption not to increase the production, which would be the second way. The more energy you produce the more it it gets consumed.
Somebody mentioned France, yes they produce a lot of energy via nuclear power. But the problems are not solved. The waste is a long term problem which lasts 10 thousands of years, basically pushing the problem into the far future to a time where the containers start to leak.
What I meant was that the USA has a much easier task to reduce the power consumption than for instance Europe, because they have so many things which are already covered over here still lingering. The first measuer of giving tax refunds on people who build heat saving measures into their homes already probably would be enough to fulfill Kyoto. This is a nono over here in europe in many areas already because every house already is built with that in mind over here. We face a much harder task.
The problem with the big cars is not a US only problem. Cross country cars are also things to have over here, by people who mainly drive them only on roads. But that problem has to be targeted as well. After those problems are solved we should and can think about raising the energy production. The US has lots of untapped potential here. Vast plains which would be perfect for wind driven power plants (this is not experimental stuff I am talking about) Lots of area which could used for artificial reforestation and then out of those forests several heat driven power plants could be built (I am talking about a natural CO2 circle here which does not increase the short term CO2 level) the list of ideas is probably endless. And as I said the US has a much easier task than Europe in this regard.
Ok, I'll give you that theyre not responsible for the big winds but the storm has killed less people than the 3-4,000 political killings by the US armed paramilitary since the US sponsored coup at the beginning of the summer.
Storm is gone, people are buried, problem is theyre stuck with the same convicted murderers who ran the country after the last coup and and before it too.
The elected president was overthrown by the US because he was pushing reforms that would help the people (like education which is non existent after the high shcool level) and would have hurt the business community.
But hey, the US has spent the past 4 decades arming paramilitary thugs all over the caribean, I guess its business as usual for those people.
Reember kids, paramilitaries are good when theyre funded by the US just like Bin Laden is good when his head choppers were in Bosnia under the Clinton watch. You just have to remember their exact designation, you know. when to use the words terrorists, killers and murderers and when to use rebels, revolutionaries and others..
Watch TV, they have down pat.
That's just plain ignorant.
At equivalent levels of technology (catalytic converters, fuel type, etc), pollution out is proportional to fuel in. Ergo, a heavy SUV, which requires more free energy to operate, will always produce more pollution than a smaller vehicle.
That holds regardless of whether it consumes biodiesel or hydrogen (whose free energy comes from some other source) or any other fuel. There is no way driving an SUV around suburbia is ever going to be anything but a pointless waste of resources.
Yeah, doing what's best for the U.S. will make a lot of people angry.
No data, no cry
I can't wait until until the election is over and the Kerry Campaign hands Slashdot back to the old editors and posters. If I want rampant political posturing I'll go to LGF or Kos.
This place used to be full of people who could see through the posturing but it sure seems like a large number of posters are just toeing the whatever-party line here.
Let's get back to geekdom for five minutes, OK?
Well the problem with nuclear energy is, besides the saftey problems, that it is a long term waste problem. The halftime of the waste of those plants can be measured in 10.000 years or more. The next thing is, that the conatainer storage problem is not fully solved then. The containers start to leak and then what? Dont expect the inhabitants on earth in 10.000 years to now about those issues. It is like, we have this clean energy, see no CO2 but the waste is absolutely deadly and will become tolerable by mammals again at a time when mammals maybe dont exist anymore.
Remember that talking about Global Warming is very unpatriotic in the US!
Just ask a "sponsored" (read: lobbied) politican.
Then ask a "censored" (read: cut off from money because of non compliant research) scientist.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
So ... we don't want to use fossil fuels, or nuclear fuels ... but we want a solution *right now*. This seems a bit incompatible; wind, solar, etc are all in development, but you won't get them overnight. Nuclear plants are worlds better than fossil fuel plants; all the waste goes into a big dense brick rather than into the atmosphere.
Modern American homes are rather energy conscious; there are just a lot of older homes that are impractical to upgrade. Once they start to fall down, the buildings replacing them will be built under new more efficient standards
We definately need tax breaks on green cars (those Smart Cars are amazing, and hybrids are coming along) and reduced/eliminated A/C. You don't need a tank to go to the supermarket (no roadside bombs, you see) and residential A/C is way overused.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
The problem is that you're clouding the issue with facts. You just can't let the facts, or God forbid actual reasoning to interfere with a perfectly good anti-USA hate-Bush rant.
Besides which you read the article. That's cheating.
I have thought that a lot of money gets wasted by the USA government by always coming to the fiscal salvage of disaster. I am really a beliver that the feds should quit paying out for reoccuring natural damage. IOW, if something happens every 10 years or less, it is natural. Good example is Hurricanes in Florida. While we should help with rescue, we should not be paying for the rebuilding of a home, a business, etc. Yet we do. In fact, I think that every state and/or locale should be evaluated for what is naturally occuring and make locals pay the insurance and/or increase the building codes. Some example
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually between Ivan and Jeanne I heard a researcher guy speaking who said that in fact there haven't been more hurricanes this year than in the previous 50 or so, just that they came more close to each other. He said that statistics don't show a definitive increasing tendency of increase in the numbers of hurricanes. He also said the strength of these also varied pretty much over the decades.
So who knows, one says the end of the world is coming, another says it's just casual/by chance.
I say, I'm glad I never run from a hurricane. I hope I'll never have to.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I live in Puerto Rico and there's a possibility that many future hurriacanes will hit us due to our location in the middle of the Caribbean. This year 3 hurriacanes (Charlie, Frances and Ivan) passed near us and Jeanne (when it was a Tropical Storm) hit us, it didn't do too much damage because it was a Trpical Storm, but as the article says, that category 5 hurriacanes are more likely to occur in the next years the Caribbean islands must do something to be prepared.
I would not be surprised by global warming increasing the incidence of extreme weather, but hopefully, non-scientists (e.g., journalists and ordinary people) commenting on future weather patterns in the tropics will keep in mind that this region, like any other, goes through cycles. In particular, hurricane activity is believed to have a cycle of its own. Therefore, for the conclusions of this study to be supported, hurricane activity in the near future should be even worse than it was from 1926 to 1970.
Does any body in the US realise that China will be the world's leading energy consumer in a very short period.
That the Chinese economy isnt so efficient that they will implement green policies in their industries.
That the only thing between Chinese pollution and the US is the Pacific ocean.
US should have signed the Kyoto treaty so that it could , along with Europe , force China to keep its pollution under check.
At the moment China has a carte blanche to pollute as it wishes.
US has been very short sighted on Kyoto and this will come to haunt the next generation.
Or is it , no body wants to Save the children anymore if it costs them?
Wanted : A Signature.
Come on, not again, you whining anti-american underground terrorists.
Pres. Bush has repeatedly stated that all this talk about global warming is unsubstantiated hogwash. There simply is no such thing as global warming.
And he's the prez, he oughta know.
Especially in light of the previous article that says the ozone 'hole' is getting smaller.
xyzzy - operation overload.
There was recently a well regarded Climatalogist from Colorado that stated that global warming woulg actually have the reverse effect and lessen hurricane season. Who to belive? All I know is that I don't have a great deal of trust in the Times. Thier agenda seems to track more along the lines of fear mongering than full and balanced research.
Florida has very little to worry about.
Hurricanes do NOT kill people. The supply strong winds and lots of rain but people actually die from pore planning, stupid choices, ineffective government and most importantly large scale poverty.
I.e. Florida lost less than 40 people in Hurricanes this year. They were directly hammered by 3 big ones (Category 3 to 5). A single category 4 passed 30 miles south of Jamaica and killed 16 people (.jm is small, 2.7 million). Meanwhile, Haiti was grazed by a tropical storm (not strong enough to be called a hurricane) and around 2000 people have died with another 100000 or so left homeless and starving (I.e. Likely to die if massive amounts of help isn't forthcoming).
PS: I am writing from Jamaica. In case that matters.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
- Polution produces greenhouse gasses and puts holes in the ozone layer. Atmosphere allows more radiation in and traps more of it as heat.
- Planet warms up.
- Ocean tempatures rise.
- Tropical storms, including hurricanes and typhoons become more severe.
- Increased lightning activity means more ozone is generated, patching the ozone hole.
- Wetter inland weather means more plant life is active to use some greenhouse gasses, thus reducing their atmospheric amounts
- Things cool off a bit and then the cycle starts again, leaving the world not a whole lot different than it started.
It could run deeper and somehow the warming of the earth is what is starting volcanos to trigger again, producing carbon monoxide which in turn eventually helps form ozone, but I can't think of a way those two events could be directly related.CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Weather prediction != climate prediction. Weather prodictions suck for anything more than 48hours. Climate predictions suck for anything less than 5 years.
Global warming is about cliamatic change, NOT about the temperature on the weekend.
These would be the same scientists that stuck a temperature sensor in Death Valley situated so as to get a world record temperature, not to measure the actual air temperature, right?
If you belive their bullshit, I've got some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you.
Kyoto is the last ditch effort by world wide communism to wreck the West. The USA is the only country smart enough to tell them to piss off. All the other countries will quietly let their targets slide when they find out how much its going to cost them.
Anybody think for a second that Canada is going to shut down Alberta's oil production to make a Kyoto target? At $50 a barrel? Not fucking likely.
The whole "global warming" bullshit was proven to be a myth by an EXTENSIVE SCIENTIFIC study done by Bjorn Lomborg who proved MATHEMATICALLY that it was all bullshit. Liberals who want to destroy America keep pushing this crap because IT SELLS and their only interest is turning the earth into a "no humans allowed" nature conservancy, despite the fact that it means the extinction of the human race. Well fuck that, I am glad to see not everyone on slash-liberal-dot has fallen for this crap.
There are many models for the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmostphere being proposed by scientists. Our best, most extensive computer models show that increased C02 will lead to climate change, and our best records show that humans activity has increased atmospheric C02 by about a third.
But the models all disagree exactly how much. And there are other sources of C02 (although there is no evidence any of them are responsible for the increases since the industial age). And since models always have to take a few shortcuts (instead of modelling every atom) they may have ignored something that could affect climate. Unfortunately, there are things we don't understand; our computer models don't explain all historical climate changes (even though every model has more C02 = climate change). And who knows, maybe the sun is hotter (even though the evidence for this is sketchier than any of the other data).
Some people turn these little bits of uncertainty into a complete lack of action. They argue that climate change is
natural", ignoring the fact that it's catastrophic and we might be able to do something about it. They choose to do nothing, and rush us ever faster into the abyss in our giant, wasteful SUVS.
A large climate change is bad news for humans, and we have some evidence that we are responsible for some of it, and we have some evidence that we might be able to slow or reverse it. Do we need more evidence? Hell yes. But if we wait for the climate experiment known as "the earth's atmosphere" to finish, we'll be doomed. I believe that human ingenuity will be able make the world a place where humans can continue to thrive.
P.S. I don't understand why "less pollution, less waste" is seen as more as a burden and not an opportunity for business.
http://www.hawaiimovietour.com/movietour/jetwatch. htm
Do as I say. Not as I do.
...I once thought Windows was the greatest OS in the world!
People change their minds as they learn! I'd rather have someone who is constantly thinking about the pros and cons, rather than stubbornly insisting that the current course of action will always be the right one!
________________
Huh?
I couldn't agree with you more Forge. As a Floridian down here hit by three hurricanes this year, it has still shocked me how little attention has been paid to the devastation caused byt these same hurricanes to our neighbors to the south.
:(
And I can't even imagine how these countries are going to handle with the coming years.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
It seems that no matter what happens it is the cause of global warming.
Lots of hurricanes, global warming. No hurricanes, global warming.
Big hurricanes, global warming. Small hurricanes, global warming.
Drought, global warming. Flooding, global warming.
Hot weather, global warming. Cold weather, global warming.
Different weather, global warming. Same weather, global warming.
Obviously the planet is warmer than it was 50,000 years ago and at least he in California it has been wetter and cooler in the last several thousand years than it has been before that. One super volcano or asteroid and we may be trying to warm the planet up or it will be very, very cold.
Great to hear the news, about the home energy problem. Anyway, I think the US has lots of potential for energy generation without the nuclear waste problem. The wide open spaces of US are an untapped potential, for wind energy, for plant growing (wood for instance) which could be burned within a short term CO2 cycle. This would be a solution for now. Would definitely save several power plants. But the problem is, that the lobbyists wouldnt be too happy about it, if every average joe in the midwest put out his/her small wind energy station and feeds it back into the national grid.
Of course, no one in Haiti is going to do much about it. They will just continue to chop down what trees remain for charcoal, etc.. They are digging their own graves. This is not a troll, this is reality.
more info
...is still on the upslope of a big sigmoid curve.
Because hurricanes are oh so good for the good old USofA. Ever heard of the "tradgedy of the commons"? The environment is the commons.
So some publicly recongnized figures signed a letter. Did they stop driving cars, flying in planes, or convert their million dollar houses to solar power? I don't think so.
I think those signatures would carry more "weight" if the signers turned the A/C off in their houses and stopped driving the SUVs that are most likely parked in their garages.
Weather patterns in the world change. They changed in the past and they will change in the future. The evidence trying to link human action to climate change is debatable. We would be better off spending our energy finding ways to establish self sustaining colonies off world. But then the tree huggers are against that also.
No, it doesnt.
A bunch of avowed leftists/marxists who have no specilized exptertise in climatology write the president a letter whining about greenhouse gases, and the president roundfiles the letter... good, I would have too. I don't know what was in it, but color me less than shocked if it came off as a bunch of leftist/environmentalist wanking...
Argumentum Ad Verecundiam, or the Appeal to False Authority, I belive it's called... a rather large example of such, I'd say.
And yes, the president decided not to waste our time with Kyoto... it was voted down 98-0 in the senate for cripes sakes... he couldn't have done anything with it anyways. It's called a reality check. Check out how treaties are ratified in this country sometime...
diorama
1. A three-dimensional miniature or life-size scene in which figures, stuffed wildlife, or other objects are arranged in a naturalistic setting against a painted background.
2. A scene reproduced on cloth transparencies with various lights shining through the cloths to produce changes in effect, intended for viewing at a distance through an apertur.
No, earth is not a diorama. Try using another word. This one does not mean what you think it does.
Actually, I think if you just leave the word out and say Earth is not static then you communicate what you mean to.
But no one claims Earth is static or a diorama. People say "the balance of nature" when nature is in flux not balance or "climate change" when that is redundant as climate is already always changing.
Jeez, all this just cause I never saw the word diorama before.
nother thing to remember, is if and when we try to control the weather, and that includes trying to fix global warming, we are more than likely going to cause more problems than what we had to start with. Remember, the job will go to the lowest bidder. And I expect the weather control stations will have the normal set of defects and shoddy workmanship which will lead to break downs and control problems.
Cool SF plot, dude.
You are only saying that because of your LIBERAL BIAS. Now shut up.
The choice isn't between an everlasting perfect summer day the whole world over and hurricains. It's really between a nearly uninhabitable europe and north american covered with mile thick ice sheets, and hurricains. Let's see.... I'm gonna go with the contriversial pro-end of the ice age party. Because choosing between starving and freezing to death, it's just not that appealing to me.
So while our fertile terran is shifting to fertile steppe, and we're still not researching advanced soil enrichment, we should also take notice that the sun is getting brighter, and it might be time to think about starting to build that solar rejuvinator. I know the red giant is aways off, but after earth is a blasted irradiated rock, it might be a little late to start, and it is a star, so the gizmo is probably going to have to be pretty big.
Who on Slashdot is enough of a fookin idiot to think other than DG=DH-DS*T?
I knew that when I was taking 1st year chem with a NOAA prof in 1991.
Humans do not have the capacity to make wise choices regarding the environment, we are to speciocentric.
I cheer the hurricanes, it is the first real significant balancing effect that can smack us in the face as an irrefutable change.
DHD (die humans die)
the whole debate about whether or not global warming is natural or manmade is moot
what both camps have to realize is that, for better or for worse, we humans are now the stewards of the planet
which means it is our reponsibility to preserve the planet as we found it- not our fault, but our responsibility
not for any nebulous moral reason, but simply because we want to save money from hurricane damage, off-par crop yields, etc.
so then the argument is not one of it's our fault vs it's mother nature's natural cycling... the argument is really one of it's our responsibility, versus, we can do anything we want to the environment and we can't do anything about what the environment throws back at us
au contraire: we CAN change what we throw at the environment and we CAN change what the environment throws back at us, so we can engineer the environment to our specifications, and so we can steward the entire planet
we can seed the ocean with iron here, we can dump CO2 into the atmosphere there... so we can bring the ice age back to scandinavia, or turn the sahara into a jungle
we are approaching the ability to do that
there is no question as to our "right" to do that
it is simply that preservation of the status quo: the sahara right where the sahara is, forever, and the taiga exactly where the taiga is, forever
simply because our economies and population patterns and comfort levels are attuned to the way it currently is, so why allow the earth to overheat or cool down, whether manmade or not?
so we have to think less along the lines of blame, and more along the lines of terraforming: the earth is our garden, and we can do whatever we want to it, so let's preserve it, simply for the sake of saving money and lives, not for any nebulous impractical moral purpose
likewise, those who say throw any CO2 crap into the atmosphere we want are wrong too: we can track the change CO2 levels have on that atmosphere, so we should tune that
so, for example, if we start noticing the earth is entering another ice age, who cares if it is a natural process? we can stop it, for the benefit of current species and our creature comforts, so we should
so evolution and natural climatic cycling stops on mother earth, due to the naked ape
it's not blame and accountability that is the human factor in global warming, it's responsibility and foresight
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I just thought I would take this opportunity to apologise for the florida hurricanes.
My attempts to capture the errant butterfly in my backyard failed.
The little git managed to evade my net on several occasions before fluttering elsewhere.
liqbase
Ever noticed how the extreme environmentalist groups are opposed to ALL forms of electrical generation? They oppose coal and oil because of pollution, nuclear because it's scary, hydro because it changes ecosystems, wind because it can kill birds that get caught in the turbines, and geothermal because of heat dissipation. It would be nice to hear their plan for how they plan for the human race to just do without electricity at all. At a minimum, I'd like to see them practice what they preach and live in the woods somewhere without modern conveniences.
as a floridian... let me be the first to say:
Fuck You Too!
Well.... actually, I think the order of magnitude of carbon and other greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere IS without precedence in the earth's history. I wonder how many acres of rainforest burning would be equivilant to all the exhaust put out by cars and other gas engines? But even more importantly- engine exhaust is ON TOP OF all the usual forest fires and burning peat bogs that usually occur. We have diesel soot microparticles from boats and trucks landing on the polar icecaps, reducing their albeda. In even the most volcanic periods of earth's biological history, did soot manage to find its ways to the poles? I don't know.
Also, as a smaller issue there are chemicals like CFCs which don't have any precedent in nature.
Haiti was grazed by a tropical storm (not strong enough to be called a hurricane) and around 2000 people have died with another 100000 or so left homeless and starving
A lot of this has to do with the rampant deforestation in Haiti. Notice that the Dominican Republic, which is on the same island, did not suffer nearly as badly, as it still has much of its forest remaining. There's a picture where you can pretty clearly see the border of Haiti and the DR -- DR is green, and Haiti is not.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
who didn't sign the kioto protocol are affected by it too, and not only the rest of the world.
While we should help with rescue, we should not be paying for the rebuilding of a home, a business, etc. Yet we do. In fact, I think that every state and/or locale should be evaluated for what is naturally occuring and make locals pay the insurance and/or increase the building codes.
YOUR problem is too much reliance on the news for your data. The ACTUAL situation is far far far closer to what you say is a good idea, and not even close to what you describe as the problem.
Most Federal disaster help is in low interest LOANS. MUST BE PAID BACK. What is not loans is "rescue help" mostly, that is always perceived as far too little by those getting it (and too generous by hard working stiffs that only see someone else getting something "for free").
Also, please see http://www.wunderground.com/education/haiti.asp and the Florida Sun's interactive article (flash required) linked at the end.
DRM = Digitally Restricted Media. This is a viral sig, pass it on.
As a Frenchman, let me be the first to say:
Eat a dick.
Driving motorized cars increases the chances of hurricanes/tornadoes/cyclones/(the Japanese ones that I can't think of the name of).
Damn SUVs! Bah!
http://pixelcort.com/
You mean avowed leftists/marxists like Stephen Hawking?
I hate to break it, but he's probably a LITTLE more informed and intelligent than you.
And yes, *one* version of the Kyoto treaty was voted down. IIRC, because of a bad phrase, not because it was a bad idea.
I'd rather have bush running the country than you, he sounds more intelligent.
Well, yes there are certain groups which oppose everything without a plan. But lets face it, Wind and Water currently are the best and cleanest ways to do the job.
Third probably heat generators, if they dont rely on fossile fuels or on nuclear energy. A growing burning wood cycle is perfectly acceptable if the trees are replanted, thus take the CO2 from the air and soil again. I think probably some kind of sun based energy source (which water and wind is indirectly) might be the best solution in the long term, given the huge deserts the earth has. Also the oceans are somehwat an untapped territority for energy production (algae production and burning comes ot my mind), but those things currently are sci fi given the current technologies.
Given water and wind, I think, micro plants are an untapped territorrity, in many countries there is the potential to do small micro sized power plants relying on wind and water which can feed back in thousands into the national grid, those things are untapped possiblities.
Lets go back to nuclear energy. The waste problem is there and still is unsolved. I would say, this is the last option if everything else fails. For me it is less the scarity, but the waste problem which does not make it a clean energy.
there were a lot more hurricanes around in the 1940's.
(In fact in the summer of 1940 there were more of them than spitfires, but the spitfire got all the glory.)
It will but they will run definitely into huge environmental problems, given the fact that everything industrywise settles down around the south coast there mainly Shanghai. What china will face are huge environmental problems, but even worse because they will be densely focused on a rather small spot of the mainland.
But back to global warming, China already has serious problems with it, did you notice the flood catastrophes this country faces and already has faced. Those were not of normal size.
there is no evidence of this nonsense called global warming.
Its warmer this hour than 12 hours ago (last night).
Its warmer this month than last winter (its the season).
Its warmer this century than 20,000 years ago (we are in the warm part of Earth's current series of ice ages).
Its cooler this billion years than the previous billion years (the Earth is cooling).
All the scientiftic data says that human activity MIGHT affect Earth's temperature sometime in the next 100 years, but we are not certain if it will cause cooling or heating OR BOTH, and we are not certain whether the Earth without human influence will be naturally getting hotter or colder OR BOTH (how both? less stably either hotter or colder and prone to swing wildly in EITHER DIRECTION like a top spinning down).
Some people call this human influence "global warming" as shorthand knowing that we DON'T KNOW BUT SHOULDN'T PROCEDE BLINDLY EITHER.
So even John Kerry voted not to ratify Kyoto. Hell, even fathead Ted Kennedy did. Because it's not about "the environment", it's about shackling the economies of the west.
;). It is however a critique of the twocountries that did not sign the Kyoto agreement.
If I remember correctly the two countries. who did not (Russia just did) ratify the aggreement were USA and Australia. These countries were asked to reduce their CO2 emission by 7%, which is not an unreasonable figure considering the fact that these countries discharge the most (per capita). Especially since countries that emit less (eg. Germany & Denmark) woved to reduce their discharge with 21% (!).
The argument presented by the USA was, that the developing countries should also reduce their emission. An argument that, IMHO, does not make much sense as these countries emit very litte (eg. they would have to give up public transportation to reduce emissions, contrasted with the fact that it would only require americans to drop their SUVs).
And if you look deeper, you will see the huge trade concessions made to Russia (by EU member states) in order for them to sign.
I believe the "trade concessions" you talk of, namely allowing Russia to keep their discharge constant, was made in an attempt to get them to sign. It could also be argued that it was not an unreasonable compromise, as Russia has had a disastrous economy since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and is still struggling to regain it's footing.
BTW. This is not to be considered an critique of neither Republicans nor Democrats. This is an internal affair, and as I am not an US citizen I will keep out of it (although I have my opinions
Kerry voted against Kyoto? Gee, that's pretty amazing considering the Kyoto protocol was never submitted to the Senate for ratification.
Kerry had some problems with that version of the protocol but he definitely recognizes that we have to do something about global warming. That's why he has authored legislation to cut down on greenhouse gases.
Here's a quote from him on Kyoto:
"Bush's abrupt and unilateral decision to abandon discussions with the world community on climate change was early evidence of this Administration's misguided approach to dealing with the community of nations. Dropping out of international implementation of the Kyoto Protocol was foolhardy then, and it is even more obviously foolhardy today."
And here's some info on his legislative efforts regarding global warming:
Compare Kerry and Bush's environmental policies
Kerry and Bush sharply divided on response to global warming
Excerpt from the Seattle Times article:
"Kerry, like Bush, opposed American participation in the current Kyoto treaty. In 1999, he joined in a 95-0 Senate vote that stated that the United States should not ratify the treaty unless China and other rapidly developing countries were also required to reduce greenhouse gases.
But Kerry, who has called pollution a "mortal threat" to the climate, wants to reopen the Kyoto negotiations to refashion an agreement acceptable to the United States.
And even without U.S. participation in the treaty, Kerry has backed mandatory efforts to control carbon dioxide.
His most high-profile effort was a 2002 bill that he and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., submitted to the Senate to force automakers to improve automobile efficiency.
The bill would have required that average fuel economy for autos sold in the U.S. to rise from 24 mpg to 36 mpg by 2015. Lower fuel consumption would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
That bill was opposed by the U.S. automotive industry and automotive unions, which argued that the target was too extreme. It failed to pass the Senate.
Kerry also supports at least modest federal caps on U.S. emissions of greenhouses gases, such as the caps contained in legislation submitted to the Senate last year by McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.
That bill seeks to ensure that the overall U.S. emissions in 2010 would be no higher than the overall levels back in 2000.
They are digging their own graves. This is not a troll, this is reality.
Saddly, I think they need someone to step in and do some nation building in their place. Its really sad, Haiti was founded by rebellious slaves who overthrew their masters, quite noble that, but evidently, it didn't devellop well. There must be a way to get them to admit they need help, its quite a big blow to a nation's collective ego, but, dammit, people are dying.
You can't take the sky from me...
Glad you brought up change. Its been a good run the last 10,000 years or so, and every year we make more people, and fill up laces like florida that for most of time had very few people. What people it did have had very little technology, even by the standards of "primitive" people, because they had to endure regular cataclysms, disease, and everything else you have to put up with when you make your home IN A TROPICAL SWAMP.
/should/ try to stop global warming, but that we should be prepared for the consequences, namely some devestation.
Sure, we can't control the weather, but its equally absurd to think we'll ever have a significant poplulation living in off-planet bubbles. The point isn't necessarily that we
How about a combination of the two.
Fuck a dick.
I guess Global Warming significantly ignores Canada, New York, Maine, London and Antartica?
Or maybe myths don't hold water where they are myths?
Not according to europes free media
Kerry won by 72% I read.
If you wnat free media follow the BBC or Reuters
Anyway, not that it would make any difference as it seems people have no choise over there
I think you hit the nail directly on the head. Nobody thinks that Bush is responsible for the environmental mess (well at least not for the one outside of Texas :-) ), but the main problem is, that he has given in public speeches and given his non existent plans basically the whole world the impression, that he does not even care anyting about it, as long as it stops him and his oil buddies to earn their dollars. In fact after hearing a few of his speeches about environment I have the feeling this guy is on a war against nature as well (great drilling oil in national parks hey :-) )
I would not really see it as a sign of coincidence that his brothers butt currently is literally blown away by the environment down in Florida, which currently gives its vote on this issue.
Whatta hell... These things threaten human lifes and you are worried about money and property damage? Haven't you seen how many people died in Haiti? The last thing they must be thinking about now is tourism!
If you ever hear or see someone put "virtuous" and "Miami" in the same sentence, you should probably be aware that they're not being serious.
Great, somebody who is against your view of the world is a marxist.... I think you should readjust your opinions about it a little bit.
You are very quick to openly dismiss the potential for sources other than industrial pollution causing an increase in CO2. Even if you assume that the global increase is due to industrial pollution, most environmentalist are quick to point straight to 1st World countries, and most specifically the United States of America.
If you assume that the United States of America is directly responsible for the massive increase in CO2 in the atmosphere on a global scale (a bunch of ifs so far I don't support), you are also presuming that giant wastful SUVs are the largest component of the production of CO2 in the USA. Truth be told, all of the SUVs in the entire USA amount to less than 1% of the total CO2 production in the USA. OK, I'll try to back that up with some hard figures, but this is somewhat hard to come by.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics does have some interesting numbers to compare, that can give some hard values. Basically, all categories of SUVs combined account for about 49% of all trucks sold. Trucks only account for 42% of all new vehicles sold, giving you about 20% of all new vehicles sold by dealerships in the USA are SUVs. OK, a major portion of vehicles, and certainly you can see them driven around near you, but not the #1 source of pollution. I'll also tell you that a light pickup will put out just as much if nor more pollution than an SUV, so are you trying to get them banned as well? If you look at this page, car & truck pollution is hardly even the single source of air pollution either. I feel very confident that if you take into account mass transit systems, bulk goods shipment, energy production systems (like coal fired power plants), agriculture production equipment (tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps, etc.), industrial production equipment, and even other personal transportation equipment, you would find SUVs to be well less than 1% of all CO2 production in the USA. Statistically it is insignificant even if all SUVs were made illegal to use or own tomorrow.
Also, going back to the stats pages, The USA isn't even a majority of auto production It is barely even #1, with many interesting countries that are making significant gains for presumably domestic production, including China and Brazil.
The fact is that if the USA were to suddenly cease to exist (we all got in our rockets and went to Mars, or nuked ourselves in a Civil War when Bush and Kerry deadlock in the Presidential election), CO2 production will continue to grow, and grow substantially for the next century, and even make up for everything the USA is currently producing.
This is not even to mention that there may be other causes for global warming besides just CO2 production. Please think before you start throwing stats around, even if you think you are promoting a proper philosophy. I would agree that as individuals we can try to avoid messing up our environment. Just don't tell me to become a hunter/gatherer again like my ancestors were many years ago and force me to choose which of my neighbors are going to get killed in the coming genocide, if your philosophies prevail.
Long range weather forecast is still an open research topic. There is a weather simulation project called ClimatePrediction.net where your computer simulate 15 years of the earth climate while you get a cool looking screen saver with the simulated weather.
Their goal is to have the most accurate weather forecast model around. This should lower the uncertainty and clear up this question of CO2 and how much it contributes to global warming They are calibrating with simulation of past weather. With the calibrated models they will then forecast the next 50 years and hopefully this will tell us if hurricanes become more likely.
Join in numbers and help clear up doubt about the future climate.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/ Thomas R. Knutson is from the government and he's here to
help you while he helps himself to some more pork.
http://www.okpork.org/
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I suggest taking a basic geology course about the environment. Some of this stuff is the equivalent of 2+2=4 in math. You aren't gonna ask people to provide sources for that are you?
If you have the time, read up on ENSO, that should at least get you started in understanding some of the basic interactions between the different parts of earth's climate system.
Is this like a feedback correction system? Civilization cuts down alot of trees, nature destroys civilization, tress grow back, civilization cuts down alot of trees, ...
[o]_O
I'm sure the chicken and goat population is much lower today. It takes a lot of animal sacrifice to overcome Miami's "virtue." :)
Laws are for people with no friends.
Good that Bush ignored it. That's at least something he did get right, even if the reason why he got it right is something along the line "a broken clock is right twice a day."
there.
... the non-idealized weather accurately, then perhaps that could lend credence to a statement that that idealized hurricanes, simulated under warmer, high-CO2 conditions, are more intense and have higher precipitation rates than under present-day conditions. Come on. Construct a model under say the wrong assumption that high jelly bean consumption will lead to stronger hurricanes, and when you boost that variable voila! Huge jelly bean consumption yields bigger hurricanes!! What a surprise. But it doesn't make the model an accurate reflection of reality.
Get real! "Idealized hurricanes" have yet to allow reliable forecasts. Most of the latter have come from experienced scientists, not from their models.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
After all, The Day After Tomorrow DVD is about to come out in 10 days...
You are very quick to openly dismiss the potential for sources other than industrial pollution causing an increase in CO2.
I'm sorry I did not repeat in this post, but please see my other post in this thread for the evidence.
If you assume that the United States of America is directly responsible for the massive increase in CO2 in the atmosphere on a global scale (a bunch of ifs so far I don't support)
I never mentioned the USA once in my post. Who exatly are you arguing with? As it turns out, I would like the US to be the world leader in cleaner, less wasteful technologies; Not only could we help keep the planet liveable for humans, but I think we could make a lot of money. But I didn't mention that in my post...weird.
Just don't tell me to become a hunter/gatherer again like my ancestors were many years ago and force me to choose which of my neighbors are going to get killed in the coming genocide, if your philosophies prevail.
What the hell are you talking about?
... a bit of rain and wind, and the whole of Florida freaks out. In the north-west of Scotland we get about a month of >100mph winds and torrential rain every winter.
Nice to see the effects of global warming hit the US first... :p
We blamed comets for natural disasters. At least that explanation had a certain romance to it.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Piffle!The USA is not a pudding fer gawds sake, it is tall from North to South and broad from East to West. It encompasses climates from the bitter cold of arctic Alaska to tropical steam in Florida and from desert in California to the eden that is the Ohio river valley. It extends from the depths of Death Valley to the heights of Mount McKinley. In all of these regions and climates, Americans have built houses that make sense. The high thermal mass pueblo construction that serves so well in southern Arizona would freeze the balls off a Minnesotan.
You really should get out more and visit the Europe you prattle about. Take a little hike from Palermo to Stavanger and explain how the same heat retaining house will serve both places. Many of us have visited Europe and we know damn well that most of the housing is not modern and in those areas where it makes sense could use a little insulation.
Furthermore, when we Canadians were considering Kyoto and examining its failings and advantages, it was pointed out to us that many US states were already doing a better job of living up to the treaty's provisions than we were. They still are.
In times of trouble, the smell of frying onions usually gives confidence and comfort.
... As far as the quantity of hurricanes go. Have a look for yourself at NOAA and count them. I did, and here's what I found.
From the year 1901-1940, approximately 1.9 hurricanes made landfall per year during that time.
Have the industrial boom and SUVs doomed us to an ever-increasing number of hurricanes? From the year 1950-2003, there have been, on average, a total of only 1.7 hurricanes that have made landfall per year. That's right, that's less! Go ahead and count them yourself. The theories may be spelling doom, but reality tells a different tale, as it often does.
So we get slammed with 3 in a row and all of a sudden it's the end of the world, and we can blame it all on Chevrolet (or George Bush, if you're so inclined)? Whatever. Three, although slightly above average, is hardly out of the ordinary. What is out of the ordinary is that they all happened to hit roughly the same area. Bad luck? You bet. Global warming? No way.
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
hmmmm... global warming? isnt that actual global temperature trend one of cooling?
"But back to global warming, China already has serious problems with it, did you notice the flood catastrophes this country faces and already has faced. Those were not of normal size. "
Weren't those floods due mostly to deforestation, as in Haiti?
So who didn't sign?
For that matter, get off your lazy ass and post a link if you're going to reference the thing. Jeez.
Thank you for your input. Speaking as an American, I can assure you that the opinions of our friends in France are duly noted, and we will give them all the consideration they deserve.
The US only gets a small (under 20%) of its energy from Nuclear Power. In Europe, most of those percentages are double or triple more.
Hydro power is the worst; it absolutely destroys the ecosystem on the river in which they are placed.
A 'growing burning wood' cycle would also be very bad; you would need to allocate large tracts of land for nothing other than raising trees and chopping them down. And you would need an incredibly large farm to power a modern society.
Things do not come out right for the hyperidealists when you actually look at the numbers
You mean avowed leftists/marxists like Stephen Hawking?
I'm not going to support this claim, but Stephen Hawking is not an expert in the field of climate and weather patterns, so his signature is still about as meaningful as mine or yours.
These people are hilarious.
There was just an program on the Weather Channel
about 2-3 weeks ago about the hurricanes.
They stated that the last few years' worth of
hurricanes were LIGHT compared to the average.
If you go back over the time people have been tracking such things (ahem, BEFORE the time that
"global warming" was a tree-huggers whine), they
said, you'll find that the average hurricane
season is more than we've been getting lately,
and it's expected.
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
LOL... he said friends in France.
And here I always thought Florida was The World's Largest Wind Turbine outside of DC..
None of this is true. the average temp of the world swings up and causes more hurricanes and this lasts for about 2 or 3 decades and the average world sea temp goes down a also lasts for a bout 2 or 3 decades. we are just experiencing an increase in temp by natural causes NOT BY MAN.
Someone must have watched "The Day After Tomorrow" last night!
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1147332004
That would be the NATURE-made ozone hole. You
know, the one right over the volcanic action...
"I know the red giant is aways off, but after earth is a blasted irradiated rock..."
What?!?!? You're actually worried about billions of years? Why?
Maybe if we put up enough 5 megawatt wind turbines we can suck that energy right back out of the system before tropical depressions can become hurricanes.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
It's getting warmer: we're causing it!
There are more hurricanes this year: it's because it's getting warmer!
I have a hard time putting much stock in climatologists claiming to understand dynamic systems. The problem is so hideously complicated, neglecting one feedback loop can throw all of the predictions out of whack.
A bunch of avowed leftists/marxists who have no specilized exptertise in climatology write the president a letter whining about greenhouse gases, and the president roundfiles the letter... good, I would have too.
So you're no brighter than Bush is. No surprise there. Who the hell cares whether they are leftists or marxists? What does that have to do with whether they are correct? That's a typical right-winger ad-hominem attack. When someone as informed as the environmental editor of Time and someone as intelligent as Stephen Hawking sign the letter, someone as stupid as George Bush should take it seriously.
Argumentum Ad Verecundiam, or the Appeal to False Authority, I belive it's called... a rather large example of such, I'd say.
No, it's an appeal to intelligence. That's probably why you didn't find it appealing.
Every time I hear somebody trying to downplay global warming, I go just a little crazy. There isn't a scientist (not on the payroll of a major oil or gas company anyway), that hasn't made it perfectly clear... there is no longer a doubt... the world is much warmer than it used to be, and it's going to get a whole lot hotter yet. Even if we stop making a mess, it will get hotter yet.
All the latest satellite research agrees. Testing thermal transfer into rock substrates agrees. Melting permafrost all over the world puntuates the obvious. Coral reefs dying because ocean water temperature exceeds the survivable limit demonstrates. Record climatic activity, heat waves, and large storm activity reflect the certainty, that the earth's ability to absorb more heat is at it's functional limit and we will soon begin seeing the kinds of disasters that can only happen when global thermal equilibrium completely breaks down. If you are ignorant of the current state of affairs, pick up this months National Geographic, the entire magazine is devoted this month to the subject. That or read the letters to the current national leadership from some of the most respected names in science in each months Scientific American. Only the truly deluded or self involved can possibly ignore what's happening now. To not be present to our growing dillema, indicates a serious personality flaw (our government as ever,is not our friend.)
Worse, the amount of CO2 in the permafrost, is equal to or greater than the amount currently in the atmosphere. If the permafrost should succeed in completely melting, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would double in short order. We are already seeing intermittent changes in the gulf stream due to changes in the haline cycle. Water is already increasing in the atmosphere (do to enhanced evaporation from rising temperatures), and water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas.
Detroit recently protested the new California Clean Air Standards saying that they would have to stop selling SUVs in CA, because it would be impossible to meet the standards with large motor, four wheel drive, vehicles. I wish we would be so lucky. Instead, Detroit will file suit in a regional court to demand that CA, change it's standards do they can continue to use our lungs and the sky in general as an open cesspool. People, it's time to choose between your monster truck with the zipcode size storage for your ego, and your children, because if you don't begin making that choice, your children won't get the opportunity to make that choice for their children.
Genda
"I come from Southern California, a place where you have to chew the air before swallowing."
Some poor sot in the south american rain forrest and other crappy countries is causing far worse dammage than the average fat american in his SUV going thru the drive-thru at McDonalds.
What goes around comes around. I have no sympathy for the US if it gets ravaged by global warming induced weather phenomenon. They basically have said "screw you' to the rest of the world.
Which is why thaey cn predit increased intensity of hurrricanes (largely climate-induced) but not frequency (much more dependent on imeidate weather events).
What people forget is that Bush didn't just withdraw us from this specific Kyoto treaty. He withdrew us from the Kyoto process, so that we arent involved in ongoing treaty negotiations regarding carb on emissions.
The blame sits squarely on the shoulder of the US Government. Blaming individual parties is splitting hairs.
in atmospheric CO2, which has been moving up and down within a reasonably narrow range of concentrations for the last 420,000 years. With tempsrature also cycling, in very tight lockstep with CO2 concentrations Our current inter-glacial period has been occuring with CO2 levels running right at the highest concentrations ever observed in the last 420,000 years. Our massive input of anthropogenic CO2 has been ON TOP OF that natural local high, and has pushed us some 30% above the highest levels ever observed over that 420,000 year period. Yes, earth;s climate changes naturally. And we are pushing it into regimes OUTSIDE the range of natural variation, based on 420,000 years of observations. Google for ice core climate data if you doubt the time period, by the way.
Why does this sound like one of those psychic predictions? You know, like when an earthquake hits and suddenly all these psychics appear out of nowhere claiming they knew all along it was going to happen.
Why did this study appear *now*, a mere few weeks after some very large hurricanes? The timing smacks of cheap scare mongering.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
America is a very popular target for many reasons, not the least of which is the desire to deep-six the Kyoto Treaty. Signing that treaty is a very bad idea for America, and will do far more harm than good. I know that you specifically didn't mention the USA by name, but often because America is a big target and in one place with one government, therefore capable of actually doing something as a group and influence the rest of the world, is made to be the bad guy and responsible for much of the world's ills, particularly in regards to global pollution.
The logical conclusion of trying to be an environmentalist is in many ways a reactionary movement to disband industrial technologies, or even agriculture-based economies. That means that we, as a people, will return to a time when we "lived in harmony with nature", and lived a subsistance hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Only by doing this can nature takes it proper course and impact of humanity is minimized. Also, by going to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle population pressures will be greatly diminished, simply because a given parcel of land can only support so many people.
If you accept that you must be allowed to have your cool gadgets, farm grown food, and enjoy a lifestyle similar to a 1st World country in the 21st Century, you must permit at least some burning of fossil fuels and the production of CO2 in some significant quantities. The only way out then is to apply more technology, not less, and be able to come up with some energy soruce that will diminish pollution. Nuclear Energy is a good alternative, but its pollution effects are in some ways even worse than fossil fuels. Solar Energy is proven to consume more energy in the manufacture of its components (particularly photovoltaic) than it produces over its lifetime. There are other environmental issues with solar energy sources as well. Wind energy kills birs and affects local climates as well. Hydroelectric systems are the best for air quality, but they do their own sort of damage to the environment.
Basically, I'm trying to point out that there are some tremendous compromises that will have to be done if you switch to anything. This is something that is going to have to be done gradually, and there is no single magical energy source that we can use to maintain our current lifestyles that will not also have a tremendous impact on the global environment in a negative way.
Should we be responsible stewards? Yes. I hope that we can make this world a cleaner place that my children and grandchildren can enjoy as much as I have been able to.
Over the last century, we have increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations by some 30%. And we were already at or very near a global maximum for concentration, for the period of he last 420,000 years, before we created that 30% increase.
In fact there is substantial dispute as to the nature and causes of climate change. Those curious might check out these websites: http://www.co2science.org/ http://geography.asu.edu/balling/
There are only 6,863,795,529 types of people in the world.
just build some decent buildings already!
for the extreme areas... semi underground domes
---- Put Sig here:
You're worried about a process of warming that's 10,000 years old, but don't advocate researching advanced soil enrichment. What are you, some kind of freedom hating ice sheet lover?
Isotopic evidence is absolutely clear; the increased carbon in the environment is coming from fossil sources; it's completely C14 depleted. Where else would it be coming from, anyway? It's the term in the mass balance that's changed. If the increase in CO2 isn;t anthropogenic, you have two big questions. 1) where *is* it coming from and 2) where *did* the carbon we emitted go? Occam doesn't really have to work very hard here.
most environmentalist are quick to point ...
(massive sigh)
Can we talk about science, please, and not about why some ill-informed group of people you don't like picks some opinion that isn't the opinion preferred by the ill-informed people you do like?
This thread isn't about ideology, it's about measurable and understandable physical processes in the atmosphere and ocean. It wasn't "environmentalists" who brought ideology into it, it was you.
mt
Slashdot needs at least one conservative opinion. If you want a dose of reality to go with the hysteria go get your hands on The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg.
Sheesh...ok so now man is gonna...no wait not man, Bush and the USA are gonna trash the earth with freaked out weather patterns again....and its all our fault....Do you know how many times (and how long) they predict the end of the world cause of global warm'n... ok so motown is caus'n Mt St Hellnes ta go off too right?
Talk about a bunch of brain washed geeks...so hmmm let me see....how close is the earth to this massive star we call the sun...what?.... you kidd'n that close....yea that has noth'n to do with what goes on here on earth noth'n at all...pay no attention to that man behind the curtin....
give me a freak'n break with this global warm'n cuased by man crap... speak'n of which....cows spew more methan gas than man could ever think of spew'n with all our machinary...
Cheers...its Saturdaynight.....
According to George H. Taylor (Certified Consulting Meteorologist and State Climatologist in Oregon,) "'Global warming causes increased storminess' makes for interesting headlines. It also violates fundamental scientific truth and the lessons of history."
Hurricanes and Global Warming: Is There a Link? was written 9/14/2004 and covers this issue rather well, thank you.
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
Global Warming doesn't mean that everything gets polarized to just one extreme (like everything should get hot OR everything should get cold). Global Warming means that normal weather patterns get fucked up by the changes in average temperature. So global warming can lead to both flooding and droughts, both hot summers and cold winters, and lead to seasons of both unusually strong and unusually weak hurricanes. Having no hurricanes in a summer (while good for florida) is not normal, and thus reason for concern because when one part of a system isn't normal, than other parts are going to be off as well.
Democrats like John Kerry drive a geo metro and live in a 950 sq ft house with no air conditioning. (And his jet is towed by reindeer.)
God vs Bush
Thats great mod this one up. they cant spell poor, but otherwise speak good english. Way to go /.
Somehow this whole discussion becomes about Iraq and oil. Parent is the definition of partisan, off-topic ranting and raving.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
As one scientist said, science is about facts, options, probabilites, risk and consequences. Not about telling the public what is the "right thing to do". Scientists certainly can tell me more about the probable outcomes and risks of various secnarios, but their "narrow" specialization means they are probably ill equiped to decide what the best course of action is for society is. Everyone thinks that their work doesn't get enough resources devoted to it. It's the natural human response. But that doesn't make for good balanced decision making. That's why we should be represented by a wide variety of people, not ruled by an autocratic body of experts.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Firstly, I'm trying hard as possible to not be a troll so hear me through. Watch the evening news, weather models have significant trouble "predicting" whether or not its going to rain tomorrow, so i don't put much faith in 'studys' dealing with simulations. It's a guess and nothing more, just one possiblity in a very chaotic, non-linear system.
-- Checking emails and kicking cheats `till the day I die.
It might even surprise you to learn that the US is actually much better than much of the rest of the world in terms of ambient quality of air and water. (Though CA residents might not believe it.)
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Anyone looking for a fixer-upper about 200 feet from the Chesapeake Bay?
High ground here I come!
There were a higher frequency of worse storms in the 40's and 50's than there are now. This is nothing more than a load of political crap. There is no link between global warming and the intensity of hurricanes. If there was, where did the horrible hurricane's from half a century ago come from, if we've been warming up the world ever since then. This is nothing more than a trumped up load of crap put out there by "scientists" that are Bush haters that are trying to blame the bad weather on president Bush. Who these people funded by, would be a more informative on what their report meant, than the report itself. Remember weather is a chaotic system, and as far as I know, there is no one that can predict chaotic weather patterns, to a very good accuracy. They can barely tell if it's going to rain in a week, how then can they pretend to know what the weather will be like next year.
I was wrong on the vote. It was Senate Resolution 98. It wasn't a 98-0 vote.
It was a 95-0 vote.
Here's a little ditty from the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, quoting the US Senate's vote.
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BT/1997/0/ SR0134P1678.HTM/
Or just google on +senate +kyoto +95 to find out more on the Byrd/Hagel Resolution, as it's known.
If they emit so little, then why can't they play along?
And if they're asking for all of their debt to be forgiven, one could say that it is but a small thing to ask them to reduce their already miniscule emissions.
I'm not trying to be a smartass, but you see how the argument can go the other way.
Gee, possibly because if it was all as cut and dried as you say, nobody would be arguing about it. Technical audience here y'know.
Nobody argues about the speed of light, because its been measured. Repeatedly. To a very high degree of accuracy. By lots and lots of people. Not all of whom can be trusted of course, but there are so many that the liars and cheats get snowed under by the honest results.
Nobody (except certain eccentric types) argues about evolution or relativity, because they've both been observed in the lab and in the wild, as it were. Again repeatedly by lots of people for years and years.
So with global warming, we have a hypothesis that has evidence supporting it, AND evidence which does not support it. When its as observed and verified as relativity currently is, then I'll sign on to spending trillions of dollars and billions of man-years of effort to curb it.
Until then, I'm thinking the whole thing is a bit too politicaly popular to be trusted, thanks. In the 1970's we were due for another ice age in 20 years, thirty years later its global warming and the same exact people are doing all the braying?
Gotta say I'm doubting it. Too much like gun control and cold fusion.
We really don't know enough about the natural (historical) cycles of our world; to attribute global warming to Bush and Ford Excursions is, I believe, a gross oversimplification. No doubt we're contributing, but, I'm of the belief it would happen anyway... See, for example, "massive global warming" on ... mars. (Before our rovers got there and started driving around with their big diesel engines... er, wait...)
m ars011207.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/
geek. lawyer.
We wouldn't have to worry as much about global warming if the USA would build more nuclear power plants, and allow Westinghouse (or was it GE?) to build some in China. But Bush can't (even though it is part of his official platform this year!), thanks to Democrats, and Kerry won't, because he is a Democrat. Further, we could use ethanol for fuel, but even Bill Clinton lacked the political karma to impose that, though at least he did get Congress to mandate the development of E85 and M85 vehicles that run on 85% alcohol (Ethanol or Methanol) as part of the 1993 Energy Policy Act. Unfortunately, "development" and "widespread mandatory deployment" are quite different things...
Florida has very little to worry about.
So are you going to pay my mortgage when I lose my job due to the devestated economy?
There's a lot to worry about besiced a direct threat to life. Florida will basically become Wyoming with coastline and warm weather if we have seasons like this one for the next 10 years.
One simple rule answers this question, Climate != Weather. Long term weather (48hrs+) is inherently unpredictable, especilly in temprate regions. I live in a temperate climate but that doesn't tell me if it will rain tommorow. Antartica has its own climate, if it has a warm sunny day, no problem. If it's climate warms by just a few degrees we get our feet wet. The speed of the current climate change is what makes it a global disaster.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
http://www.newpath4.com/icyhot.htm is a good place to start. However besides shamelessly plugging my non-polluting engine I'd like to take a moment to add that as we continue to use fossil fuels for combustion engines, there's another side effect going on that we should take note of. There's another hurricane called clinical depression afflicting many people & children. Our cars burn up oxygen that our brain needs to be stable and healthy. (http://www.newpath4.com/theequation.htm has important info.) The writhing spasms of earthquakes & hurricanes on this planet is being reflected inside our bodies because of the Fluids inside each: http://www.newpath4.com/clinicaldepression101.htm. We have to fix this planet, and fast. Even if it means GETTING SCORED LOW ON SLASHDOT.
Read it for yourself. It does say that the US should not sign any agreement unless all the countries are held to the same standard (currently 80% of the world is not restricted what-so-ever by the protocol - including China) and it shouldn't be signed if it would do severe damage to the US economy. It also says that if it is passed on to the Senate for ratification.. it needs to be delivered with an impact assessment.
To me - it all seems pretty reasonable.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Recently there was a story in CNN (in spanish) about how there were no deaths in Cuba after one of the big of the last hurricanes because of prevention.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Living on the Gulf Coast, this is a topic of particular interest to me. Please read his article on the subject and comment. I personally don't know what to believe, myself.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/091404D.html
"'Global warming causes increased storminess' makes for interesting headlines. It also violates fundamental scientific truth and the lessons of history." - George Taylor
TParker (rekrapt)
All men aren't pigs... we just smell that way.
One, we not only withdrew from the 'protocol' (the treaty) we withdrew from the negotiating body that is still working to define future 'protocols.' I said that in my post; we withdrew from the PROCESS. We withdrew from having input into future proposed treaties. Two, on a per capita basis (or national basis, for that matter), the US emits MUCH more carbon than China and India. They were exempt precisely because their per capita emmissions are relatively very low compared to ours. The opposition was because it targeted the US as the major emitter of carbon, and that would hurt our economy. The Kyoto treaty was flawed, and could not have been ratified. But the process for modifying that, and working toward a more palatable treaty was extant, and Bush withdrew from THAT.
Denial of unpleasant truths seems to be a big part of living in Western culture.
Every fifth post through this whole thread is, "The Sky is NOT falling!" and "There is NO link between global warming and strange weather!" Essentially, "NOTHING IS ABNORMAL! LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
Ahem. .
First Ever South Atlantic Hurricane Hits Brazil. (March of 2004)
South American Glaciers Melting Faster, Changing Sea Level.
Alaskan Glaciers Melting Faster.
desertification in China.
desertification in Africa.
.
Heck, even the rest of the solar system is acting funny. Remember the. .
Blue Band on Jupiter this past March of 2004?
and
the Huge X-class solar flares of last year?
Interestingly, the evidence of past hurricanes categorized by decade suggests that there have been big hurricanes to make US landfall before. Indeed, the worst decade, from 1950-1959 saw a total of nine storms between category 3 and 4, (though none of category 5) during that ten year period. Sure. But we've just had four in just one summer. Nobody can say that this is par for any course.
Now, I am not claiming that this has anything to do with global warming. But anybody who tells me that everything is normal probably swore up and down that The Phantom Menace was a good film for a whole year after it came out.
-FL
the height of humanities arrogance is its belief that it can drasticaly effect global climate (something it barely understands to begin with). look at weather patterns of an extended period of time (100+ years) and youll see that such storms happen on a fairly regular basis. yes, lets all blame america and rich suv driving republicans and especialy george bush because if it wasnt for him, these hurricans wouldnt have wanted to hit us in the first place.
Bungo!
Of course, Global Cooling has exactly the same symptoms.
I would think that the Sun has far more to do with global warming on Earth than human activity on Earth would have to do with a blue band around Jupiter or x-class solar flares on the sun.
Understand, I never said I didn't believe in global warming... I said I didn't know what to believe. Chill, the planet hasn't burst into flames just yet.
And people who think the Phantom Menance sucked are just too old now to suspend their disbelief as they did when they were younger and watched the first Star Wars movie. Lighten up... those movies are made for kids. You sound bitter about it...
All men aren't pigs... we just smell that way.
No,
l trans.shtml
The adlantic convayer is thought to be because of the water cooling as it reaches the ice sheets. As it cools, it sinks driving the convayer.
The melting of the ice sheets decrease the salinity of the sea water causing it not to drop as deap or as fast, reducing the power of the conveyer, and ultimatly turning it off.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/bigchil
Huh. Sounds to me like hurricanes kill a lot of people. There are factors that can increase/decrease your risk of being killed by a hurricain, but it is the hurricain that does it.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2002/06/03/MN215596.DTL
Bush to Florida: "Welcome to adaptation b**ches!"
And you all thought Bush didn't belive in evolution.
He thinks the floridians will grow gills and armored exoskeletons.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Your post should make people wonder just how credible people are who push the global warming problem. Does it even exist? I highly doubt it.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
What's your point? We aren't on this planet to please everyone else. We also don't have to ask permission from a world government (yes, it's a world government already: NWO) to defend the US by making sure Iraq has sensible leaders in power. Anyone who thinks the UN is the top of the food chain is consciously or unconsciously wanting a NWO to be in full control. The US is a stand alone nation. We were not founded in order to give everyone a warm fuzzy. We were founded because a group of people did not have a warm fuzzy because they wanted freedom of religion (note that is not the same as freedom from religion which some people think is what the Constitution states).
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Bush is getting part of the blame for it, and rightfully so.
sarcasm: Oh of course. WHen Bush is in office for 4 years and when it takes many many decades for the global temperature to raise a noticeable amount to cause meteorlogical patterns to change it just makes sense that a President (any President) can be blamed for this due to political actions, or lack thereof.:endsarcasm
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
It seems that no matter what happens it is the cause of global warming.
Y'know, in the 1970s, the "green" movement was most worried about global cooling and the onset of a new ice age? Their prescription then was to reduce economic and industrial activity. Now they're worried about warming and you know what their prescription for that is? Exactly the same.
To me, it looks an awful lot like they've already decided what they wanted, and are constantly casting about finding a way to justify it. No-one should comment on environmental issue who hasn't at least read Bjorn Lomborg's book.
For fuck's sake, when are we going to get around to exterminating all of the liberals? Just what do they contribute besides whining and sticking their hands out?
Just think, if we got rid of all of those useless fucks we'd be left with a culture of self-sufficient people who didn't perpetually try to use the government for ripping off other people and sticking their noses in other people's business.
Just waste 'em. Who's gonna miss 'em?
"people actually die from pore planning"
What do a person's pores have to do with dying?
Sorry, if Global Warming cuts across the cycle that implies it has an effect.
When will the excuses stop? Global Warming has become the premier method of chastising the US for having the worlds most powerful economy. Gleefully ignoring all the environmental terrors that occured in the old Soviet block and those occuring now in Asia.
well, they have nothing in common, execpt
beeing man-made problems in atmosphere...
Hey, Remember Kyoto treaty ? It's not too late ! http://www.issues2000.org/George_W__Bush.htm Vote John Kerry !
So we only have to worry if we're gonna die, right?
Huddling inside while the winds howl for hours waiting to see if the roof comes off, having a tree come down on the SUV, sitting in the sweltering dark unable to watch our big-screen TVs because the power's been out for days - none of those count.
OK, so I'm being sarky. I'm not insensitive to what happened in Haiti. In fact, I'm disgusted with what happened in Haiti because a lot of it wouldn't have happened if we cared one 10th as much about Haiti as we do about Cuba or Iraq (Obviously they need to start a rumor that they might be building/importing WMDs).
Still, even people in Pennsylvania wouldn't voluntarily go through the stress and disruption that comes from even the washed-out remnants of what we've seen this year. People don't HAVE to die to make something a matter of concern.
Ah well, next year we'll probably have a quite year and the "junk science" experts will be saying that this was all a fluke. Till the year after makes up for it.
And the statistician drowned in the lake that averaged 2 inches deep.
Hydro power is the worst; it absolutely destroys the ecosystem on the river in which they are placed. Does it really? I come from a country which does not have oceans but had to build up its main energy source without nuclear plants. Therefore hydro energy is big over here. Things seem to look bad first but are not that bad if you look closely. The main problem with hydro energy is that it basically interferes with natural habitats. But so do cities and other manmade resources. What has to be done is to place the plants into areas which interfere least, if possible. (near cities, in areas where there is already a strong influence of man on the surrounding) Or simply go the micro power plant route, and have thousands of small power plants on already existing water mill places which feed back into the grid.
The other problem is the obvious blocking of fish swarms. This problem is solved to a big degree already by so called fish ladders, which seem to work quite well.
The main problem for certain type of rivers is the blocking of flooding material. The main rivers which are affected by those are the ones, which build Deltas out of the flooding material, this is the biggest problem with hydro plants nowadays, but not all rivers are affected (The Yangtse river in china, the Nile in egypt and the Missispi in the USA)
But those problems are rather small if considered carfully, compared to atomic waste you dont even know to get rid of at the current day. If there was a secure way to get the waste into the sun without risiking a high chance to pollute huge parts of the planet in an accident, then I would be pro nuclear power plants, but since there is none, oh well.
As for the tree growing problem, I see not a big deal here, in the US, the USA has vast open lands which are untapped at all, a reforestation with some kind of ecological cycle would help as long as there are no mono cultures in the trees. Also the sea could be a huge ressource for such plants, growing algae in the see would be an excellent ressource for bio material based power plants.
And normal weather patterns have exactly the same symptoms. I have no doubt that we are affecting the weather to a certain extent but it seems whatever weather we have is proof of "massive" changes, which I cannot buy into.
Back in 1880's - 1900's the environmentalists solution to smog was to raise the factories smokestacks higher into the air. While it did cure the smog problem it created acid rain and hurt the environment in ways they could not have fathomed. Of course they really did not take the time to.
I say "moderately", because we already have a number of studies predicting all kinds of phenomenas "caused by global warming", and by sheer luck of the draw one of those studies is bound to eventually hit pay dirt.
I think you are giving them too much credit. As I stated in another post the environmentalists around the 1900's though the solution to smog was to raise the factory smokestacks higher in the air. It did solve that problem but created much more widespread, more damaging ones.
It is pretty much the same here. With little information they want to make massive changes. We have made changes....not that the rest of the world has kept up. But even in their own ranks that cannot agree on what will happen to the weather say 5 years from now, 10 years from now. Each camp has their own ideas. Both can't be right.
I think that the big difference is that in European countries, the ecosystems in the larger rivers have pretty much been hosed a couple of hundred years ago.
While things like fish ladders are romantic and nice, but they do not fully mitigate the impact by a long shot. The thing about Nuclear power is that while the waste is very toxic, the quantity is very small.
Which is more ecologically friendly: Burying a couple tons of waste under a single mountain in a place that is so dry there is no native life anyways, or massive tree farms covering hundreds of thousands of square miles, or damming up river systems that drain whole continents, even with fish ladders and all of the greatest mitigations?
To use a mathematical metaphor, which is a higher number: 100% of 10, or 0.01% of one million?
As for the USA's vast open lands, the USA's vast open lands are all dry prairie and steppe; the well watered land (which is pretty much limited to east of the Mississpi), is too densely populated to support your proposals. Further out west, on the west coast, there are water shortages to deal with. Australia suffers from this problem as well.
It is precisely because most people who discuss environmental policies in the light that "We must do something NOW!" usually throw science and hard figures out the window and throw up ideology right away. The topic subject is "Scientist don't know EVERTHING=lets do NOTHING?", and then went into a huge argument that criticized that most people suggest we do nothing to affect the CO2 levels in the atmoshpere. And then further threw up the whole SUV issue as if getting rid of all SUVs are going to stop the global rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. If that isn't ideology, I don't know what is.
I am not ill informed, and there are certainly changes to the overall atmosphere due to modern society. I think though that the way to solve these issues is not to dismantle our industrial society (getting rid of SUVs and other CO2 emission sources), nor do I think that this is an unsolvable problem. While I will admit and conceed that there is global warming, I will not admit that the primary and chief cause of this is due to human activity... there are far to many variables and the models that are used are by scientists with an axe to grind.
Also, two huge sources of CO2 emissions include volcanoes and forest fires. Forest fires are pretty much self-regulating, as a good healthy forest will pretty much output as much carbon as it absorbs, perhaps even bury some in the ground for future time periods. There are also some chemical processes in the ocean and with some geological processes that also can release CO2 under the right circumstances (although I'll admit that the ocean is more likely to absorb the CO2 than release it at the moment.) All of these processes can release C14 depleted CO2, just as you are citing.
Environmental monitoring is also suspect, as the methods used to obtain the numbers often involve political sensationalism and can be skewed by picking monitoring locations that best serve a political agenda, particularly if the scientists involved are trying to push for increased pollution regulation.
It is very difficult to obtain objectively very good numbers, as the consequences of what happens when those numbers get published can influence policy decisions that affect ordinary people like myself who is struggling to simply raise a family and to be honest sound like alarmist freaks trying to rob money from me. There are people pushing for environmental policies that have frankly done some very poor science, and there is a huge backlash going on against all environmental scientists because of this, even those scientists who really are using the scientific method properly and doing some remarkable and worthy work. If you can show me some hard numbers, explain very clearly how the method used to obtain those numbers is totally objective, and most importantly, that the numbers used contain more than simply 50 years of climate data, I am very impressed.
I am also very familiar with the schools for environmental science, and they tend to have students and professors with a slightly more liberal viewpoint, even compared to a typical college campus. I don't think you will too many Bush/Cheeny stickers on students in those schools, and indeed you will see many "Anybody but Bush" instead. Locally the Natural Resource College is a very good place to find a Kerry supporter if you wanted to find one in a hurry, even though the college Republicans on campus are quite strong in general. It is precisely this political leaning that also pushes ideological values that go straight to environmental policies as well, as these are the "experts" that come up with these numbers.
I don't know about all that, but I wish people died from "pore" spelling.
A series of hurricans hit the same area about 40 years ago. According to some weather scientist I saw on TV, it's a normal pattern. We can expect the same thing in another 40 years.
You're way too much of a pussy to ever take this liberal on in person. You're just another anonymous coward hiding behind a monitor.
Just think, if we got rid of all of those useless fucks we'd be left with a culture of self-sufficient people who didn't perpetually try to use the government for ripping off other people and sticking their noses in other people's business.
When conservatives are polluting the air I breathe, it's my business. When conservatives are handing over public lands to Exxon so that they can sell our oil to China, it's my business.
Ripping other people off? I probably pay way more in taxes than you ever will and you don't see me whining about it. John Kerry pays more in taxes every year than you'll ever earn, and he's not whining about it. It's the conservatives who want all of the benefits of living in this society without shouldering any of the costs.
Conservatives, as a group, are the least self-sufficient people in the world. They are a bunch of impoverished, innumerate idiots who think that they can have everything from roads to safe food and medicine and not pay any taxes. Just look at these results from the last election if you doubt me:
Top ten states by income:
1 Connecticut - Gore
New Jersey - Gore
Massachusetts - Gore
Maryland - Gore
New York - Gore
New Hampshire - Bush
Minnesota - Gore
Illinois - Gore
Colorado - Bush
California - Gore
Bottom ten states by income:
Louisiana - Bush
South Carolina - Bush
Alabama - Bush
Idaho - Bush
Montana - Bush
Utah - Bush
New Mexico - Gore
West Virginia - Bush
Arkansas - Bush
50 Mississippi - Bush
Now lets look at education. These are the top ten states rated by percentage of residents over 25 with bachelor's degrees or higher:
1 Colorado - Bush
Massachusetts - Gore
Maryland - Gore
Virginia - Bush
Connecticut - Gore
Minnesota - Gore
New Hampshire - Bush
New Jersey - Gore
Vermont - Gore
New York - Gore
And now for the bottom ten states (those with the smallest percentage of residents over 25 with bachelor's degrees or higher):
Wyoming - Bush
Kentucky - Bush
Alabama - Bush
Idaho - Bush
Nevada - Bush
South Carolina - Bush
Mississippi - Bush
Arkansas - Bush
Indiana - Bush
50 West Virginia - Bush
So it looks like Gore was the strong favorite in states where the population was educated and enjoyed a good income while Bush was the candidate of choice in states where education and income were low.
Political statement.
Any warming increases the energy available for hurricanes.
Automobile windshield-induced warming of CDs causes increased warping of CD material. CDs are warped the same by toaster-induced warming or fireplace-induced warming.
No the ecosystem of rivers in western europe was hosed in the 50s and 60s but for instance the danube and rhine nowadays are quite clean. The huge chemical desaster in the rhine 15-20 years ago did its fair share for the reconstruction work. But if you mean that the water is regulated in huge parts in those rivers and has been, you are right to a certain degree.
Well the atomic waste problem is a different issue, the problem is, that even if you bury it in a mountain, the waste remains there for another 50.000 and more years unless it becomes untoxic. The other issue is, that the containers, do not last that long.
You basically bury in a heritage which a civlizatiion in the distant future has to cope with. If they are lucky they are technically advanced enough to deal with the problem, but if not, say goodbye to the civilization.
You are right about the prairies in the open spaces. But those would be perfect for a windmill system (yes I know the birds, whatever) or the grassy plains for harvesting grass like plants which could be burned.
Also as I said numerous times in that thread, the sea is an untapped potential for growing biomass. 2/3rd of the earths surface is ocean, numerous biomass able lifeforms grow there anyway, which could be harvested and raised in open sea farms. Raising algae for biomass energy production would be feasable for instance.
Just because you can swim in the Rhine and the Danube does not mean that they are pristine. The ecology and biodiversity of those rivers is very different then it was a thousand years ago. All forms of human civilization has an impact, and the only way it won't is if we revert to the stone age.
Why is it that you continually ignore the fact that the amount of radioactive waste is negligiable? Just out of curiousity, what quantity of waste do you consider unacceptable? Even if we relied on fission for another several thousand years, the amount of Yucca mountain equivalents that we have access to are endless. Frankly, if you see these as an environmental hazard, you should bulldoze the cities of New York, London and Berlin. The existance of those cities is a greater environmental hazard, for they raise the temperature of surrounding areas and alter weather patterns. The same can't be said for a few small bits of radioactive waste buried deep in the soil. And those cities are harder to "dispose" then a few bits of chemicals.
In my mind, the biggest problem with Fission power is not where we put the chemicals, its the problems associated with transporting them to their destinations.
I'd rather render a few hundred hectares of desert a no-mans land for eternity, then saturate thousands of square miles with tree farms, windmills etc. The environmental impact is much, much less.
As for the sea, lets not speculate about technology that simply does not exist yet. I'm aware of possibilities for Ocean Thermal Electrical Conversion power (power by differentials between surface and deep temperatures), ocean biomass power (what you describe), but if we are going to compare a current solution with one that does not exist yet, we may as well start talking about Fusion, Microwave and other forms of power.
If is too, for agnostics and athiests!
Global Warming - yawn.....
Maybe the whole has always been there and is little more than a vent. Of course that wouldn't generate the same level of fear and funding.
Correction. The sentence:
"I was evidence that..."
is supposed to start with:
"I want evidence that..."
Hope that clears it up.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
No, freedom of religion says you can be whatever religion you want and no one cares, public or private. Freedom from religion means no one is allowed to have a religion (gee, how convenient for those who don't have one already) no matter what, public or private. We already went through that stage and it wasn't in the US however agnostics and atheists would like us to return to that state of society. I'm not sure why though since those who have a religion aren't bothering them. Just because some people wish to practice in public while others wish to do so in private (or not do anything if the case may be) shouldn't matter to those in private since it's not like they are being told they CAN'T do what they want but ironically enough those in public are being told they CAN'T do what THEY want. Double standard.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
The number of shark attacks for that year turned out to be fewer than the average. It was just alot hype from the press.
See "How to Scare People with Statistics"
Irene KHAAAAAAN!