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Major Climate Change 5,200 Years Ago Could Repeat
An anonymous reader writes "The climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts. Famouse glaciologist professor Lonnie Thompson have found clues that show history repeating itself. Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across the globe. He outlined his fears today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. 'The evidence clearly points back to this point in history and to some event that occurred. It also points to similar changes occurring in today's climate as well,' he said."
What's famouse?
Is it some kind of bird?
New York City will be flooded by seawater, the temperature will plunge at a rate of 10 degrees per second, and people will be transformed into ice statues where they stand. Tokyo will be bombarded with killer hailstones! The polar ice caps will MELT. This sounds like the perfect storyline for a really shitty mov-- oh, right..
from the article
"The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway."
President George W. Bush disagrees with this. Therefore more study is needed.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
here...http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/quelpla nt.htm
You mean...all of the historicals account of a tramatic climate changing event (or was it a flood) might be true???? But that has to be wrong. What do ancient societies know about science, or historical records? ;p
The best part of the article is the advertisement:
Discount Climate Change:
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Not only did you not get first post, you didn't even RTFA. Sad.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
This story is a dupe from 3196 B.C.
There's been a lot in the news about climate change lately and I hear a lot of people dismissing it as junk science. I think anyone would easily agree that our current lifestyle must have an effect on the world as we know it. If you want further proof, try biking behind a truck and tell me how that feels. Sure, it's possible that scientists might exagerate their results so that they get more funding, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that we are seriously changing the world as we know it (probably not for the better) and that there is no way to properly predict what the consequences of our actions will be. So maybe we should start actually doing something about it...Kyoto anyone?
What do you think "global warming" is if not "climate change?"
It's semantics. The present administration refuses to call it "global warming," that's all. Not saying they have a plan or anything - but they do talk about it from time to time. They just don't want to use that "warming" word because it pisses off george's oil buddies.
There was a study by the Russians in the 70's to investigate whether a Nuclear Winter might be irreversible.
:)
IIRC, the study concluded that the 63% was the tipping point where the reflection of heat from white ice starts a self propogating ice age.
Mankind will survive anyway, that's all I really care
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
There is a conspiracy theory of the 10 th planet (Marduk) passing near Earth every 2600 yrs and creating climate disturbances (flood etc). Since 5200 = 2600 * 2 ...
i see how it is. i finally get a girlfriend and now the planet's going to freeze over.
thanks a fucking bunch, environment.
There is substantial evidence of the impact human actions have on natural resources, like pollution, extreme CO2 amounts, ozon destruction etc. If nature goes wild, then it's nature's fault, but we humans should not accelerate that fault.
It's called global warming!
i've read that this climate change could have been the spur for the start of civilisation. the drying environment in the ancient middle east caused people to migrate from drying marsh areas to near rivers and irrigation (and hence cities, civilisation, writing et cetera) may have developed to counter the drier weather.
We know that in the past the earth has gone through many (often cataclysmic) climate changes. We also know that this will happen again.
Since the 70's every now and again someone predicts that such a climate change is just around the corner. The truth is that these predictions are very inaccurate. I'm talking thousands of years uncertainty. I see nothing in this article that makes this prediction any different.
So relax, the chances of anything like this happening in your lifetime is vanishingly small.
siener's youtube channel
I read it all but the last paragraph. Oh well, thats the (first and) last time I go for a fp...
Uhmm.. G.W Bush claims that "Global Warming" (henceforth referred to as "G.W") will melt the poles and ....
Whitehouse later retracted the claims when they realized NYC will be under 20 feet of sea water. The Gaia theory has been proposed along with Alaskan ice to fix the issue in concern.God shall call forth another great flood to cleanse the world.
Of course he blames the entire problem on Iraq and the fact that they set fire to oil wells in Kuwait in 1991 leading to a rise in temperature of the Free World. Also Canadians contribute to this problem in no small amount as a comparitive study of houses with central heating in Miami and Tornoto showed.
Mmm... twisted newsQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Do you want to live your life as a lemming? http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/lettersOct-Nov0 3/12604btlracism.htm/
OK, so the climate is going to change .
But from what the article suggests, we will get a period of decreased solar activity, causing a (serious0 global cooling (if I read it correctly).
Unfortunately the article keeps only sayign that ``a major climate change'' is about to happen, without bothering to point out what it is going to be.
Should we stock up on heaters, and start generating more greenhouse gasses ?
or should we stock up on sun-cream and cut all NOx emisisions ?
I'll believe in global warming the minute "scientists" find something to agree on. At the moment we have scientists saying we're in the middle of global warming, that we're in a cold period, that ice ages are the norm and we're in between one, and others saying that ice ages come in between warm periods. We have scientists saying that we're overdue for an ice age, others saying we've just come out of one. There are scientists saying we have no effect on global warming compared to just one volcanic eruption, others say humans have had more influence than any other event on the planet.
So what should we believe today?
Before you know it canada will be home to the most habitable land, and you can smoke pot. Wahoo!!
We already know the Earth's climate is changing, you can say it'll get super hot, super cold, or tentical monsters will invade.
The world leaders arn't really listening, they just go "yea we'll do it.. erm.. we've got lag!"
Just learn to swim...
I like muppets.
bring it on..
To date there is no known way mankind can annihilate an entire planet or its life. To be sure, poofing off all our nuclear devices would be the end of this mammal period and mark the start of the renewed rule of insects. Life would live on.
If we don't blast our nukes, but continue to pollute and increase the global temperature, mankind will still survive, although quality of life for the already suffering part of the human race will further decrease.
If we instead direct all available resources on picking up our own garbage, we will instead have the problem of third world nations continue the trend of polluting the planet. Believe me, this is happening right here in China right now.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Taking the nihilist approach, we can coldly contemplate the fact that Mother Earth in itself can be regarded as an organism (coined Gaia), where all life on the planet are to the planet what the cells are to the human body. Gaia may lose some of its "cells", but it will continue living on. And on a larger time scale, humans just represent an infinitesimally small time period of Gaia's existence. Gaia has seen countless of species come and go, and she will see humans come and go as well.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't. It is just a matter of time. Resistance is futile. In the end we and all our descendants will disappear. We will fry. Or freeze. We WILL die.
You might as well try to have fun tonight. I know I will.
...doesn't make it 'our' problem.
Ofcourse, this is based purely on the assumption (yes, as well) that climate change isn't going to occur anytime soon. It's quite human actually ; same as using poor countries for chemical waste dumping : it is not our problem.
Now please take out the stamp marked "environmentalist hippy", put it in that bright red ink and use it - I know you want to : makes reading/remembering/understanding the above not so important...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I think it's a bit much to claim that we're headed for an ice age or that our own emissions are the cause for it. However I do think we should take better care of our enviroment. Regardless of ice ages and such we're fucking up our enviroment and it is disgusting. Driving towards LA is revolting and it's not much better in other major cities. We need to replace our road systems with effecient electric train systems and more people need to go back to walking and biking. It'd certainly not hurt if people would stop throwing their garbage on the ground wherever they go. People, and especially us Americans, are slobs. We need to change our lifestyle before we live in total filth.
I live in Las Vegas right now and most days you can't see across the valley even. Driving through town is a horrible experience. The Strip is especially bad. That area at least should be blocked to non-commercial and non-emergency traffic (ie firetrucks, FedEx, and taxis should be able to go through). I'd not get rid of roads entirely but I'd cut them down to one or two lanes and I'd encourage non-commercial traffic to come by train or taxi rather than driving.
Most places I've lived it's been all but taboo to walk or bicycle. Tell a job that you're going to walk or bicycle or even take the bus to work and they're a lot less likely to hire you. Often there aren't bike lanes or sidewalks. Bicyclists and even walkers get hid by careless drivers all the time. Small effecient vehicles like the recently popular scooters are often against the law to use on either street or sidewalk. Not exactly encouraging to those that'd like a cheaper and more enviromentally friendly way of getting around.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Pathetic. This is the equivalent of stamping their feet. From misinformation to fear-mongering, the purveyors of the litany of environmental catastrophes have no shame.
Before blandly accepting another sky-is-falling study, ask Mr. Thompson if it will rain next Thursday. Ask yourself how we came to the erroneous conclusion that the earth has a meteorological "balance". Ask yourself how the IPCC was pressured to change its own conclusions. Ask yourself what place consensus has in anyone who values independent thought.
When what you believe becomes the only thing you can believe, then no prediction, no extrapolation, no leap of logic is too far, and science, the slow, rigorous process, becomes the province of the wild-eyed fanatics with exactly the same inclinations as those they disdain.
Somebody call Dennis Quaid immediately!
There has been many ice ages in the earths history and we are somewhere between two. The serious (i.e. non-political - I hate so-called scientists who can predict global warming but not predict the weather tomorrow) researchers believe that the temperature may increase some four degrees before the start of the next ice age.
Some researchers notes that the earth were four degrees warmer around 1000 BC (my memory may be wrong with the year) and that the climate also were significantly warmer 800-1200 AD which let to prosperity up until the colder middle age. So let us look forward to a bit of warming!
Jorgen
There wouldn't have been a problem if the Egyptians hadn't ruined the environment by building all those pyramids. Their per capita consumption of limestone far exceeded that of other human populations, leading to a significant increase in the albedo of the planet, and global cooling. The correlation of climate change with pyramid building is clear proof that it was their fault.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Few dispute that they are related to climate change, the issue is mostly if it is caused by the greenhouse effect and if humans are almost solely responsible for it.
oops.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Yes, it's our goal to destroy the Earth! My dream is my kids growing up in a US of A paved from coast to coast and having huge CFC generators pollute the atmosphere.
You caught us red-handed, now we can't end all human life!!!!
...a woolly mammoth with food still in its mouth?
She'll last longer. Ewww!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
That proves it. All this quasi-science about the Earth being round (when anyone can see it's flat) is clearly debunked, when a major scientist finds the planet's corners and brings back from each corner samples of its core.
This gives me hope we'll dispense with that space travel hoax soon, too.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Fo shizzle
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
the only good point about this movie was the last 30 seconds when the astronaut points out he has never seen the atmosphere so clear before. anyways this sort of story is old news for anyone who has seen the movie Pi, and has tried to apply spirals to life. Life will constantly repeat itself, spiraling to a point that is finally rock bottom, at which point our survival instincts will take over, and we will shift to a new spiral, hit the pinnacle of society in that form, and spiral back down to self destruction. Its not humanity, but the nature of life itself. You grow, mature, peak, then spiral down to death.
If this also happened 5,200 doesn't that suggest it's a pattern or earth cycle and not necessarily due to the man-made pollution, etc?
The grasp of the English language has certainly degraded recently.
Or maybe,
The graps of the inglish lanwedge has sertanly deegraded latelee.
So what should we believe today?
...oh...wait..
That in Soviet Russia, the Globe Warms YOU!
My Favourite Meme
Virtually everyone burns, directly or indirectly, fossil fuels. What's your point?
i would suggest that you read the article once more. it has been written clearly that global warming has been taken into consideration.
As soon as the US accepts global warming the rest of the world will take notice.
The rest of the world has taken notice - isn't is just the US left? Agreed that they're just too selfish to care about cutting back for the sake of the planet, if there's even the smallest doubt. GWB doesn't give a damn either.
I personally don't believe that all the freak storms and floods I've been seeing over the last few years are unrelated to climate change.
Amen to that. Monitoring/predicting temperatures is one thing, but we seem to have record-breaking weather conditions every few months!
If you want to support real climate change research instead of listening to this fear mongering, head over to climateprediction.net and donate some of your idle CPU time to their distibuted computing project.
siener's youtube channel
The Maya's an Aztechs are announcing this with their calendar that includes 'new suns' every 5200 years and with the new sun comes an enormous climate change. Guess what according to the maya's the new sun is coming in the year 2012.l l2/silburyhill2004b.html
More information about this can be found at a site about cropcircles, a certain crop which one the title 'cropcircle of the year' which is a doomsday calender which is warning for the new sun. The site explains the maya calender which fits exactly over the 5200 years of the old sun which according to the calendar will be replaced by the new sun and climate in 2012. http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2004/silburyhi
So a catastrophic climate change took 5200 years ago?
...
Bible believers have been talking about an ice age taking place a few hundred years after a world-wide deluge took place 5000 years ago...
'After the Flood you would have both', says Mike. 'The water that the Bible indicates came from under the ground during the Flood would have been very warm or hot. This water mixing with the pre-Flood ocean would result in a significantly warmer ocean, right after the Flood, than today. Warmer water means more evaporation. So you have more moisture in the air available for storms, generating snow and ice at middle and upper latitudes, close to the developing ice sheets. And the ash and gases in the air is what gives the cooling of the summers.' All this, he points out, would have been like a 'loaded gun' at the end of the Flood. 'There would have been no way to delay it, an ice age just had to start.'
Mike Oard's calculations show that a likely estimate for when the Ice Age reached its maximum would have been around 500 years after the Flood, with about another 200 years to melt. He warns that this is only a 'ballpark' figure, which could vary by hundreds of years--'but that's still a short time for evolutionists.'
[Link ]
Global ice age information
Link to discussion of other evidence...
Thanks to all those who responded. It now turns out that some much more authoritative and better-informed people than I are already doing this! Please, if you're posting some pet theory about why all this peer-reviewed science is baloney to this story, do yourself a favour and check one of these sites out before you make a fool of yourself in front of your peers.
Thank you.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
"things clearly point to an event, but we don't know what that event is, give us money so we can find out"
Machine9dotNet
it is happening before our eyes, for those who want to see and not stick their heads in the sand and ignore reality.
we can not yet be certain of the cause, nor how it will continue. however it is quite well proven that human activities at least contribute to the currently observed warming. one must be cautious to blame 100% on human activity, it only undermines the credibility of science. however to completely ignore just because it is unagreeable to have to change our way of life is just irresponsible and immoral.
please keep a good balance, and rather be too cautious than too little cautious. fact is we do have only one planet to waste!
Even the guys who do know the subject have to phrase everything with "may", "possibly" & "could". It isn't science, it's at best well informed conjecture.
I am sympathetic to the cause, but the real issue, as far as I can see is the sheer number of people on the planet, all of whom want the best life possible. The least politically dangerous solution to that is to ensure everybody gets a TV, because enforced birth control, or letting the sick and hungry die aren't viable political options outside of dictatorships.
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
To raise a question, and put my Fatalistic hat on:
If Act of G-d similar to Jacob and the famine in Egypt is definitely going to occur, why not make Hay while the sun shines, in preparation for the famine??
So the scientists would have to show that any Kyoto-agreement like cut would be beneficial overall, not just putting your finger in a dyke. If we concentrate on trying to avoid it, and fail to make preparations, it could end up worse. This is not to deny that some companies and countries are evil and irresponsible muthafukkas. All this impending doom stuff is still unsubstantiated beyond this guy.
The scientists need more funds to conduct studies.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
It "was altered"? By who? The cavemen? Or was it the vast civilization of the woolly mammoth whose massive industrialized society spewed greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?
I know the idea that our environment is a static entity that will only be changed should someone like the evil corporations or the Bush administration do something to it is a commonly accepted idea, but that is just scientifically inaccurate.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
climate change is a minor worry
it's civilization itself we need be concerned with
religious fanaticism is rampant
ignorance is on the rise
the number of people with enough general knowledge to understand complex systems, in their entirety, is rapidly decreasing
civil discourse is on the wane
morons and idiots are storming the castle of reason
in this light, some change in the weather might be a good thing!
How convenient for the environmental alarmists. Now any weather event, hot or cold, can be used as "evidence" for further scaremongering.
Guess what folks, there were floods and hurricanes and blizzards before humans ever existed. Before the first caveman learned to tame fire, Earth's temperature and climate varied in ways that dwarf today's minor fluctuations.
Junk science-- mere blips of statistical noise tortured out of dubious computer simulations-- is being harnessed to the service of a coercive, collectivist political agenda.
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Or so a space colonization advocate once said. The metaphor has its rough spots, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Resistance is futile. In the end we and all our descendants will disappear. We will fry. Or freeze. We WILL die.
If we get some viable off-world settlements, I'm sure we can make it to at least the heat-death of the universe.
Fun Fact: The Saudi Royal family pledged up to $20 million US dollars to the Clinton Library
Hey, fella, guess what? You're in luck!The consensus on human CO2 emissions causing climate change is about as solid as you can get - despite what the oil-lobby, uninformed trolls and assorted net.kooks would have you believe.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
"Something happened back at this time and it was monumental," Thompson said
"The evidence clearly points back to this point in history and to some event that occurred. It also points to similar changes occurring in today's climate as well," he said.
Uhh... The word you're seeking, Mr. Thompson, is "recurring ice age".
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Is is just me or does this sound like a movie I saw recently..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/
>Damned if we do, damned if we don't
Damned if we doo bee doo bee doo, too
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
The consensus on human CO2 emissions
Consensus...the data substitute.
Why don't scientists use the word 'concensus' when talking about things we actually understand? (The consensus is the Earth is round. The consensus is matter exhibits properties of both waves and particles. The consensus is...)
When you have hard data, you don't need consensus. The only scientists defending their theories with "the concensus is..." are those lacking real evidence.
Consensus is useful for getting grant money. It is in no way an acceptable substitute for actual results.
"I'll believe in global warming the minute 'scientists' find something to agree on."
/.
You hit on the operative word--"believe."
Environmentalism (as opposed to conservation) has deteriorated into a religion, which by definition mandates belief from followers. If you doubt this, witness two of the topics that generate the most comments and flaming "Flamebait" moderations on
Post something questioning religion (mainstream), global warming, or man's impact on the environment, then sit back and watch the zealot fireworks show.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
some missing parts of this mail could be decrypted from this source
... ...
...
...
==========
How about these new car spew out 43 percent more
global-warming pollution and 47 percent more air
pollution than an average car.
And maybe you can construct them that they are
four times more likely than other cars to roll
over in an accident and three times more likely to
kill the occupants in a rollover.
They should cost the owner thousands more on
gasoline.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
If major climate change is underway then let's use our resources to deal with the consequences instead of crippling ourselves in a futile attempt to avert the inevitable.
Cool, more scientific proof that the Biblical story of Noah is true.
Get your Kicks on Route 66
I'm usually not one to complain about spelling or grammar on here. But, when you've got a sentence like "Famouse glaciologist professor Lonnie Thompson have found clues that show history repeating itself" on the front page, you can tell Slashdot has hit a new low.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Damn, you mean to say they had SUV's 5,200 years ago?
I forgot what I was going to say.
irc.enterthegame.com #linux
Humans throw much more in the atmosphere then any common volcano does.
Where did you get that odd idea from? Volcanoes put far more gasses into the atmosphere than humans, yes even those common ones. Each erruption may only add a small amount, but there are thousands of erruptions a day, including many thousand volcanoes that are continuously errupting. Add the volcanoes that seep out gasses constantly without actually errupting. It ain't all Mt Etna when we come to volcanoes.
So relax, the chances of anything like this happening in your lifetime is vanishingly small.
That would be our estimate if we didn't have any additional information. But we have additional information: recent climate records and knowledge about recent changes in the composition of our atmosphere. And those tell us that something seems to be happening right now, and it even tells us what the trigger is.
In different words, the chances that you have a cold or flu on any particular day are small, but if you're sneezing and have a headache, chances are pretty good that you're having one right now, even if your temperature isn't all that high yet.
it is a wrapping side-scroller.
it was clear that the oceans would die by the turn of the century, the ozone hole would be so large it would cover parts of Africa, people would be dieing of radiation poisoning from the sun... etc etc etc.
Weren't the ice caps supposed to be all gone soon?
Why should even the public take notice anymore? The boy who cried wolf syndrome has worn done the public's acceptance.
Proof has been constantly cited since the 70s and yet all the dire predictions have come to naught. I am not saying they are all wrong, I am saying that their proof leaves a lot to be desired and the only cause they are hurting is their own. I still laugh at all the predictions of doom from Kuwati and Iraqi oil fields being set ablaze if America acted (back in GulfWar1 and now 2)
Face it, a cosmic mishap (solar/meteor), will do more to us than we can do short of a nuclear war. A few good volcanoes provide visible effect that the public can see and in some cases experience. The same effects are blamed on Global Warming by one group and El Nino by the next.
Global Scientist are sure of one thing, that the weather is constantly changing. What they haven't proven beyond reasonable doubt is that mankind is the primary mover behind it, nor that America is the primary mover either.
You want to see real pollution, travel to former Soviet states. You will see stuff that will make you cry. You want to see new and greater abuses of the environment just jog over to China - but don't expect anyone to care.
In 20 years some then current environmentalist when confronted by dire predictions 20 years ago will dismiss those people as not having had the full picture whereas they do now. The same this is being said when opponents to the current pc point of view point out the fallacies of 20 years ago.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Knowing science is not the same as being affected by it. From the article:
How does Thompson conclude that the event didn't seem monumental to the people living 5,200 years ago; did he travel back in his time machine to ask them or what? If I were to die in a snow blizzard like Ötzi did, I would consider that monumental to me.
They quite likely didn't have much historical records of their own to tell what the climate had been hundreds of years before, but according to Thompson's evidence, this chill appears to have lasted only three years. At a time when humans had already begun farming, they sure must have noticed that their crops failed and the weather wasn't what it had used to be for decades. So what if their explanation for it may have differed from ours?
In any case, I highly doubt they said: "Oh, it's been snowing for weeks now, but since there are only 250 million of us on the entire planet, this event isn't monumental at all and we simply don't care about it!"
As for the flood, one possible origin of that myth is the filling of the Black Sea which occurred some 7,000 years ago (due to melting glaciers and thus a raised sea level).
I thought that when scientists studied those ice corse, one of the first things that they learned was that climate changes seemed to be cyclical. In other words, we go from a relatively hot period to a relatively cold period. From what I have read, this seems to be a natural occurance of Earth. I don't really think global warming (or cooling) is something that we can stop. It seems to me at least, that this is a natural part of the homeostasis of earth. Sure, we might affect this cycle by some amount, but then again I would imagine that every life form on earth has some affect on it.
SIGFAULT
You can joke, but the US is the worlds biggest polluter. Considering the population is a fraction of China and India it shows how bad the pollution generated is.
Naturally India and China will catch up as their economies strengthen, but the US has the technology, money and skills to reduce pollution, it just doesn't have the intent.
The leadership has plenty of ties to the oil and energy industries and so you won't see much of an efficiency drive while they are in power.
Does that mean that all climate change is beyond our control and that we shouldn't worry about our climate, as you so cynically imply? Quite to the contrary. The author himself continues:That answers your question of "by 'who'?": it "was altered by increased solar output".
Ask yourself this: when 9/11 happened, did the Bush administration say "oh, well, shit happens, let's just forget about it"? Or did they start two wars costing hundreds of billions of dollars to attempt to reduce the threat by addressing those aspects of the threat they could target?
So, as summers get hotter and the polar ice caps are melting, wouldn't the prudent thing by to reduce one big factor that we know presents a threat to climate stability and that we have influence over, namely carbon emissions?
Oh, but I forget, the Bush administration only takes action if it aligns with the short-term financial interests of their donors, not if it aligns with the long-term interests of the American economy or the American people.
"Well informed conjecture"
I'm sorry, but that is what I thought science was!
stuff
This is the same line of crap that I heard back in the 60's. That is all the DDT that we were spraying could not impact nature. Companies everywhere were saying that they could not possibly impact nature and while there might be some minor local issues it would never travel.
To put forward totally false assertions (volcanos dump more CO2 than all of mankind does) is the same tripe that is being spewed by the oil companies. Mankind dumps a lot more CO2 than all but the very large super-volcanos (think Yellowstone).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"That a system is too chaotic to predict on a microlevel does not mean we can't understand or predict it on a macrolevel."
in quatum physics, you also cannot predict the exact path or position of one single electron. we don't need to either. it is sufficient that the majority of the electrons in your CRT end up on the phosphorus layer of your screen.
Inidividual elecrons can theoretically end up anywhere anytime (unpredicatable) this does not mean that you can't use them.
The day after tomorrow of course.
Bad karma for correcting people I always say.
i'm neither, but the Repub bashing shows you to be just as ignorant.
On/T - show me a solution to the problem and will back it. kyoto certainly isn't it, and i am yet to be convinced there is an anthropogenic solution to global warming.
Well, I've never heard of him, and I hit all the cons.
Hmmm, so a massive climate change took place a about 5000 years ago? And the biblical flood occured some time around 3000BC, give or take? Anyone body else want to connect the two events? Seems like a reasonable hunch, wouldn't it?
The flaming may now proceed.....
You see if we wait long enought and spend enough money to research the facts we will discover that Kyoto is a bunch of bull and just another way for the indebt third world counties to wiggle thier way out of paying off loans.
Now I'm going out back to go start a tire fire and roast small animals over it to get PETA's and the Sierra Clubs attention.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Well, considering that many Americans seem to think that every international treaty is anti-USA, it's understandable that some foreigners think that USA is anti-world.
Is it just me or did anyone who read this have a flashback to the first scene of the movie? Does the scientist in this article look anything like Dennis Quaid? And does anyone else think Dennis Quaid reminds you of "The Dude" (Big Lebowski)?
No, Kyoto alone will not be enough to stop global warming, but at least now there are some limits on how much the member nations can pollute.
Hopefully this will trigger an infrastructure change to greener energy in those nations. And maybe some techniques developed by the early adopters can then be exported to other nations.
Calling humanity separate from nature is not arbitrary. We are separate because of agriculture, sentience, and free will. The point is, while many groups have the ability to affect the global climate, we have the time to consider the issue and the ability to choose to try and fix our mess.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
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How many flippin' times are you going to repeat this comment? If it's such a clear consensus then give it a rest.
I like what Michael Crichton says in his recent book that will soon be published:
Michael Crichton Article
I have a lot of respect for Michael Crichton. With countless number one selling books not to mention a medical degree under his belt, I think the man is very smart.
Little Ice Age from 1450 - 1850
Oh my god, the earth is getting warmer from the last 150 years-----Panic.
Duh, we are not in the Little Ice Age anymore, of course it is going to be warmer then the unusal cold Little ICE Age. Why the hell do you think it was called the Little Ice Age and lasted 400 years?
Anyone know what the current health status of the guy that ate DDT to prove how safe it was?
Ask me about my vow of silence!
Bullshit.
Volcanoes: 145-255 million tons of CO2 per year, total.
(http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/voHumans: 24 billion tons. About 150 times the amount of all volcanoes combined.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
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The article clearly points out something happend 5,200 years ago but it doesn't elaborate on why it's happening again.
The article reads a lot like scaremongering. What evidence do they have that it's happening again?
Yuioup
As we know it, there has been no major nuclear war exchange between the United States and Russia.
As we know it, there are major US and Russian cities that millions of people live within.
As we know it, there is a global marketplace through which to exchange goods, services and ideas.
As we know it, there is no nuclear fallout.
If there were such an exchange, life as we know it, would most certainly change. Humanity as we know it would also change.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
When you have hard data, you don't need consensus.
In the case of global warming, the only data you'd probably accept would be a couple of centuries with melted polar ice caps, massive species extinctions, and catastrophic climatic change.
Yeah, hard data is generally preferable to informed opinions, but not when collecting the data is a planet destroying process. We sometimes need to extrapolate from incomplete data to derive a prudent course of action.
The fact remains that the vast majority of climatologists believe humans are contributing to a process of global warming, with undesired results. Only a few vocal fringe elements have their theories amplified to create enough doubt to justify the policy of continuing along our present course while we "study the situation". Credible scientists believe the time to do nothing but study this situation has passed, and we now need to study it as we try to correct the problem.
This is another case where big money dictates public policy. US energy policy is driven by fossil fuel suppliers, much to the detriment of our national security, balance of trade and environment. There are already plenty of viable renewable energy resources and technologies that would convert the US from an energy importer to an energy exporter, and many more promising technologies await in the near future. Promoting these energy technologies would be good fiscal policy, good defense policy, and good environmental policy. But it won't happen in an administration that invited Enron CEO Ken Lay to secret US energy policy meetings.
Didja know that Condoleezza Rice had a Chevron oil tanker named after her?
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Long long time ago Precambrian, still it probably did happen once
This event is thought to have happened during the Silurian Period 250M years ago. There may have been glaciations during the Precambrian (> 530 M years ago) but evidence is obscured by the fact that there are very few sedimentary rocks of age that preserve the evidence. Continental landmasses were far smaller as well.
an ill wind that blows no good
The climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts.
Of course it was. When God created this world, I would say that would be a severe impact.
(Actually most Christians believe it was around 6000+ years ago, but then again 5200 is a lot closer than millions of years.)
Art by Mindy Herman, my wife.
The climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts.
Of course it was. When God created this world, I would say that would be a severe impact.
(Actually most Christians believe it was around 6000+ years ago, but then again 5200 is a lot closer than millions of years.)
Art by Mindy Herman, my wife.
...the New York Times is also reporting new evidence that Pharoah's real name was George "King Tut" Bush, and the climate change was clearly a result of bad karma due to his invasion of the lands of Babylon and rejection of a environmental treaty with the Assyrians.
Amazing the stuff you find out.
-Styopa
IANACS (I Am Not A Climate Scientist), but while there are areaa w/ warming trends, there are also some odd cooling trends. Interesting quote from a link below:
Some links:
Fun quote from a actual MIT climatologist, Richard S. Lindzen :
Check out the Reason article - some knowledgeable people have doubts about global warming, or question it's magnitude. It's bizarre that one pole is warming, the other is cooling...My favorite quote from the Reason article:
We would be dead by now, if we hadn't reduced the amount of CFCs we released into the air and curbed CO2 production. Giving dire predictions of what will happen if we dont clean up our act is what causes us to clean up our act.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
The sun will burn out one day and this is ice age stuff will be the least of our worries ;)
I notice it is always "fears" of climate change. That would mean that we have the best possible climate right now and every other climate situation would be worse. What are the chances of us lucking out like that statistically? (Yes we are adapted to it but we are adaptable) I am not blind to dire possibilities but when every possibility but the status quo is dire my reason rejects that. But if you are in terror then march on Earths Protectors and after we have stopped climate change and extinction of species then perhaps we can work on erosion. Because I "fear" that if we don't do something, "soon" all land masses will slide under the waves. Because of GWB. Singly. Maybe Dick helps.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
I"m glad that we have such a scientific mind in the White House. Otherwise you know, the power of the United States government might have been duped into actually checking to see if this was really a problem.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Come on, the article rambles on about all this data that points to a change 5200 years ago. There is no mention of the evidence supporting similar changes are underway. The obvious conclusion from the evidence presented in the article (it mentions the exponential increase in the rate several glaciers are retreating) is the climate is getting WARMER, not colder.
The scientist involved even says we don't know what triggered the event 5200 years ago, and we don't know enough about the mechanism that controls climate to go tinkering with it.
Anyway, big news flash - natural processes like climate change are cyclic. The energy output of the sun varies. The Earth revolves and rotates.
The sky is not falling. You will die some day. Get over it.
. there used to be a sig here.....
We're not, tree-hugger. First of all the one thing I agree with is that we need to cut down on environmental toxity, not only on atmospheric emissions but also on other sources of disease such as for example the less than nutritional food that is forced upon us.
However, tree-hugger, just as healthy foods such as hormone-free meat, eggs without antibiotica, salad and fruit without pesticide are far more tastier than the crap they sell at the supermarket, there is no reason whatsoever to cut down on the amenities of modern life. Forcing everybody on a train with set schedules and set destinations is communist. Our road system gives us the freedom to go where we want exactly when we want and on top we also get the who we want because we don't have to share our car with total strangers. Hydrogen powered cars will sooner or later replace cars running on petrochemicals and electric trains will sooner or later exclusively carry cargo but not people.
As to throwing garbage on the ground, maybe we should look into improving and streamlining the process of getting it removed FROM THE GROUND before putting up a waste-basket every 200 feet or so or even making people take their garbage home. Undoubtedly in the mid-term future, "garbage" such as paper, plastic or even organics will be a much in demand commodity. Just consider the fact that once we run out of oil we also run out of cheap plastic.
Driving through town is indeed a horrible experience, I'll give you that. Most of it however is due to the fact that the demand we put on the road system in general has risen exponentially while existing infrastructure is geared towards the demand of the fifties. Japan is one of the worlds most space constrained countries and cities in the west will adopt japanese traffic solutions such as stacking multiple stories of roads on top of another or moving stores, amusements and even offices below the ground. Small to medium cities and towns will increasingly divert dense traffic from downtown areas to city limits, offering commerce growth at the perimeter. (You, upset walking/cycling dude will have to walk a hell of a lot more, of course),
Tell you what, you are indeed a member of an odd minority that insists on inefficiency, something an employer is least likely to appreciate. I would suggest that you take your car to work and then in the evening ride your bicycle in a Bicycle-Park or other designated area where it can not interfere with traffic nor be endanged by it.
Whatever you do, however, don't bitch at us because we do not literally go the extra mile. Bitch at the people that deliberately hold back both technology and society.
Seriously, man, you need about 7 fewer cups of coffee per morning.
It's funny! Laugh! Why does everyone have such a chip on their shoulder these days? People have to stop working themselves up into lather, foaming at the mouth, and laugh at the occasional gems of wit that we come across. NOT EVERYTHING IS A PERSONAL POLITICAL ATTACK LEVELED AT YOU!!
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Hey, they cant PROOF I farted the last bit of Co2, so shurely our economy cannot be hampered by silly theories of Global Warming! Fuck the poor delta coutries.
A lot has already happened to slow the tyrend down, yet it marches on. And yes, many of these predictions are coming true. It merely takes longer when you do some serious things to slow it down.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
RIP Shawn Patrick Wight 1971-1997
You better listen to Doctor Thompson. To make it to the status of "famous" in the field of glacier professory, you have to be REALLY good...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Apparently, you seen the documentary about this. It's the most important movie of the year!
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
climate change us upon us repent! climate change can happen! the little ice age was a man made disaster! sign treaty X and and it will all be solved...
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
why does this sound exactly like the plot of the the day after tomorrow ... oh yeah, that's because this IS the plot of that movie without even little changes. talk about plagiarism. /sarcasm
MORTAR COMBAT!
I think everyone here ready to point a finger at mankind, as accurate and justifyable as that may be, are overlooking one critical detail about this article. The 5200 year old deep freeze was apparently trigger by SOLAR ACTIVITY, something we have absolutely no control whatsoever on. I'm not sure if that means massive sunspots, flares, cosmic dust cloud, whatever. If all of a sudden we have a drastic change in radiation heating our atmosphere, pollution and global warming are not going to have any impact on this. Of course, this in no way impacts the need to stop polluting the hell out of our atmosphere, but I think a more important survival point is figuring out how to maintain a workable infrastructure, economy, food and energy supply to keep humans in sustainable numbers around through a 500-1000 year stint of ice, flooding, whatever disaster. We're talking extermination of 2/3 the population at least, massive drops in birth rates, wars, barbarism, generally the textbook definition of chaos. Would be nice to be able to preserve culture in this for surviving generations as well. Sounds like nature has a systme of checks and balances for human overpopulation afterall.
I know the idea that our environment is a static entity that will only be changed should someone like the evil corporations or the Bush administration do something to it is a commonly accepted idea, but that is just scientifically inaccurate.
That's also a straw man argument, since no one is making that claiming. Everyone knows that the environment can be affected by things beyond man's control. But that doesn't mean that we should just ignore those things we can control. "Well, a meteor strike could wipe out life on Earth, so let's not worry about dioxyn, PCBs, air pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions. And what's with those whiners in Bhopal, India? So what if Union Carbide killed thousands. Earthquakes kill thousands of people, so why should Union Carbide have to be concerned with safety?" That's Republican logic (to use an oxymoron) for you.
Is anyone else sick of all the handwaving from environmentalists? Don't get me wrong. Yes, there are major environmental problems that need addressing, but shit, everything's a global catastrophe right around the corner with these guys. And the problem is, they simply have no idea.
I mean really, they say temperatures are rising because of global warming caused by man-made pollution, but they can't really be sure that's the cause. I mean, I'm not saying it isn't a factor and that it's not a problem. I'm simply saying, we don't really know for sure.
In the past, temperatures have risen and fallen quickly and drastically on this planet, just as the event of this article describes. But why these things happen, we don't really understand. Shit, meteorologists have a hard time telling me if the sun is going to be out tomorrow and now someone's trying to tell me that we're heading for a major climate shift? Come on. I'm sorry, but this is barely worth my time in responding. I've been hearing theories about how we're on the verge of a major climate change for as long as I can remember and the cause is always something different. The truth is, they have no clue and I wish they'd just admit it and stop with all the hand waving.
I mean hell, he even says: "Any prudent person would agree that we don't yet understand the complexities with the climate system and, since we don't, we should be extremely cautious in how much we 'tweak' the system." Well, by the same token, any prudent person would agree that you don't understand squat, so why are you waving your hands around predicting a major climate shift, if you don't understand the complexities with the climate system? I mean, for God's sakem, listen to your own words.
It's all these drastic doom-sayers that make environmentalists look like a bunch of nitwits, and I know environmentalists as a whole aren't a bunch of nitwits. Many of them are very smart and thoughtful people. But they really need to start being much more careful about who they give a listen to and more importantly, who they give a voice to on their behalf.
Heck, it works for the Europeans.
/.'ers go)
Seriously, though, why not entice businesses with promotiing more work at home? Why go into the office at all every day? Many of us have no need for that, and would actually be more productive without being distracted in cubeville. (At least as far as
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Supposedly we have another planet with a huge 5000 years plus eliptical orbit around our own sun that's about the size of jupiter and was talked about by the Sumarians. How bout we ask them... Oops.
It's Planet X and it's scheduled return. 4000-5000 years sounds about right basd on Planet X's orbit around Sol. NASA and the government have been trying to keep this quiet for years but you can't refute the work of amateurs astronomers who have been charting Planet X's approach. All of this is common knowledge if you read up on the Mayans and their astronomy. Even the bible has references to the Niburu (the beings that inhabit Planet X). The part in the bible where angels "lie down" with man in Sodom and Gommorah was a reference to the alien/human hybrids that were born of that unholy union. Their offspring were giants who ate everything in sight and eventually turned to human flesh. It's all happening again as it was prophesied. Those of us who know the truth have been trying to pass it on to the rest of you, but you write us off as "crackpots". We'll see who the crackpots are once the Niburu return and try to mate with our women and enslave us. The Niburu have been working on playing with the Earth's climate as their approach has gotten closer. They've been making it ultimately hot and cold as needed. It's a simple method of confusing most idiotic humans into thinking it's caused by "greenhouse" gasses ornatural climatological shifts. It's their advanced weather control systems. So take this as yet another warning that will be written off as "pseudo-science" if you must, but don't complain when the Niburu return and take your women from you.
News flash to those who haven't been watching closely for the past 4 million years or so: we've BEEN in an Ice Age for ~4 million years, we're merely between glaciations at the moment.
Historically, actually, geologically speaking, we're FAR more likely to have another continental glaciation coming, than to do Global Warming sufficent to return us to the extensive jungle/swamp/shallow seas of the Paleozoic Era. . .after all, THAT was the natural condition and climate of Earth for over half a billion years: the current, more moderate temperatures are the product of a MUCH shorter period of time. . .
who might have gotten stuck in an avalanche or fallen in a lake or some other crap --- what is this rapid rate? day? month? year? decade? 5000 years (aka who gives a flying fuck)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
show me a solution to the problem and will back it
The problems are:
1) Convention. We have infrastructure in place to burn fossil fuels, and inertia being what it is, we continue along that course. Maintaining the status quo is bad for the environment. It also results in an unfavorable balance of trade for the US. I was amused by the public service announcements equating drug use with funding terrorists. The US is addicted to oil from the Middle East, and that addiction is the real source of funding for Middle Eastern terrorists.
2) Subsidies. There are pseudo-subsidies which make it difficult for alternative energy to compete with fossil fuels. These aren't direct government subsidies to the oil industry, although some amount of that wouldn't surprise me. Many of the costs of burning fossil fuels are not paid by the fuel infrastructure. Pollution is paid for in a number of other places, including everything from the EPA budget, to the increased cost of insurance and health care relating to environmentally related illnesses, to the increased maintenance costs we all pay for tasks such as repainting because smog damages almost everything it touches. And who pays for medical care of coal miners with black lung? How much of our taxes does the US government contribute to cleaning up oil spills? If fossil fuels paid for all the problems they cause our society, solar and wind power would be more than cost effective in a fair comparison.
3) Fuelish Government Policies. As one example, the US government offers a substantial tax break to businesses who buy trucks of a certain size. The idea was ostensibly to encourage small businesses to buy delivery trucks and farmers to buy farm related vehicles. But the policy was almost instantly exploited. It encouraged automakers to produce the land barge sized SUVs. Almost every auto maker has a model large enough to qualify, and they're sold to businesses that provide them as company cars. So the government is encouraging auto makers to build 12 mpg SUVs, by offering tax incentives for businesses to buy them.
GM created the EV1 electric car. They leased them to many customers, and the customers loved them. They were very low maintenance, requiring no oil changes and even reduced brake wear because they employed regenerative braking. Best of all, there was never a need to stop for gas. It charges automatically while parked in the garage at night when the off peak electric rates are low. It's easy to imagine solar charging for the EV1. But GM decided to focus 30+ years down the road on the hope of hydrogen cars. Despite angry protests from their customers, they pulled the EV1 off lease. Some of their customers wanted to absolve GM of all liability and support for the EV1 and purchase it outright, after essentially already buying it during the lease period. GM refused. It sure looks like an attempt to suppress technology.
So, here are the solutions to the problem. Start backing them.
We could have electric cars today that pollute much less than internal combustion engine cars, even when they're ultimately powered by coal powered plants as an interim solution. Solar power is available almost everywhere and even though Moore's Law does not apply to solar cells, a similar effect seems likely. Once we converted our energy system to mostly solar, huge economies of scale apply and the price drops enormously. Solar panels have proven to be low maintenance with long term reliability. If we get the initial cost down, the payback period will be shorter and this technology will appeal even to short sighted American businesses.
We need less expensive solar cells, more efficient energy storage devices, and a change in our infrastructure to support alternative energy solutions.
Finally, one obviously simple technique that would have the single largest impact in our energy policy would be to drastically reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned for space heating and water heating.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
It goes on to say (or at least imply) that we are now experiencing a similar pattern of solar output, currently being at stage (3) above.
If all this is accurate, putting the blame on human CO2 output might be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc: While humans are definitely producing a whole lot of CO2, it's arrogant to say that we're the ones messing up the climate. If the sun's output is getting ready to fall off by five percent or so, well, compared to that, human CO2 output will have about as much impact as a fart in a stadium.
Hell, we may end up praying for all the greenhouse effect we can find <g>.
So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the rest of the morning Googling "fluctuations in solar output climate".
This is not my sandwich.
Yes global warming in the past 50-100 years has pretty much been proven, but there is almost no good evidence showing that human activity has caused it.
moo
since no one is making that claiming
Obviously should have been "claim." Sorry for not editing with more care.
Sure, and in WW2, recruits were doused with DDT powder to get rid of body lice, with no ill effect, as is agreed by anyone who knows anything about the subject.
The key is that the form in which a substance is delivered determines if it can be absorbed into the body and delivered to the right places to do damage. This is the same reason that the idea of spiking a water supply with plutonium to kill millions of people is not going to work.
DDT is not all that acutely toxic. But it can be delivered to animals, particularly predator birds, in a very harmful way.
The key is that DDT persists in the environment. It is not broken down by organisms ingesting it, it is mainly stored in their tissues. Thus it disappears from the environment very, very slowly. Exotic organic chemicals that behave this way, or that break down into other chemicals that behave this way, are a problem even if they don't necessarily have immediate impact on the environment. If critter A ingests the rather low concentrations in the general environment, no particular harm occurs. What people immediately missed is that if critter B eats critter A, he'll get a somewhat bigger dose of the material than critter A did, because terrestrial animals need to consume something like ten pounds of food to create a pound of body mass. Critter C gets an even bigger dose, all the way down to critter Z which gets a huge dose.
This process of amplification of the background concentration of a non-biodegradable substance is called bioaccumulation. Birds are particularly vulnerable because their energy requirements are so high, especially raptors like eagles.
Yet, even so, the effect of DDT on birds is not very acutely toxic. It has a subtle effect. Unfortunately that subtle effect happens to be that they lay eggs with extremely brittle shells.
Personally, I don't think DDT should have necessarily been banned, however, it was overused. It could have been used in emergency situations for a limited time at a rate close to the rate at which it would eventually disappear (if that rate could be determined). However it was used in typical 50s fashion as a miracle quick fix agent. The spirit is not completely lost -- we use antibacterial agents in soap, even matresses, for absolutely no good reason.
In any case, materials now in use, such as permethrin (targetting adult insects) do break down in the environment. This means that they don't bioaccumulate. The disadvantage is that you have to use them more frequently. The advantage is that you use them in response to an actual problem. Other materials such as BT that target larval stage insects not only biodegrade, but target smaller habitats. Rather than saturate broad swathsw environment with an agent that kills adult insects (including beneficials), you target the specific habitat where insects develop in their early larval stages. Furthermore with integrated pest management, a combination of strategies are used such as targetting and reducing specific habitats important to precise life stages of specific insects.
The bottom line is that properly and wisely applied, the world probably could make use DDT. But we were wrong to use it the way we did, and probably right to ban it so we'd be forced to develop effective and environmentally responsible strategies and materials. And we have. If we hadd DDT in our armamentarium, it'd only make a marginal difference.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Check out this speech by Michael Crichton on the subject. www.crichton-official.com
The problem here is that in the US, we have enough resources and technology so that, when the weather heats up, we just crank up the AC. When the sea level rises, we just move inland. When we have droughts, we just irrigate. There is not enough near term discomfort generated by the threat of "global warming" to cause people to act now. People do not generally act with the long term in mind - here in the US people are taught from a young age to "do what feels good - NOW! Don't wait to enjoy yourself - enjoy yourself NOW!" The issue here is not simply how much CO2 (or other bad gas of the decade - remember the 80s -90s and CFCs?) we generate, but the conflicting ideals of "do what's most enjoyable for myself" and "do what's responsible". For, inevitably, doing what is responsible will require some sacrifice on the part of a person in their choices.
That's the real problem - people not wanting to sacrifice something; it's not how much stuff we burn. (Think of it this way - why do we produce CO2? Why don't we use the alternatives? The answer is generally "because I'd have to wait to have the same things I can have now and that would infringe on my right to enjoy myself now". Sad.)
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
http://www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/41 7492/0/pentagon-on-climate-change.pdf
Those LIBERALS over at DOD claim global climate change is one of the most serious national security concerns.
This just in: The atmosphere was poison gas, raining debris and the surface was devoid of life. Greenpeace and al gore will be making announcements today stating this will repeat itself next week. This news provided by the same individuals who wrote the Kyoto protocol.
Tyler: You don't know where ive been, Lou. YOU DONT KNOW WHERE IVE BEEN!!
DDT is still used outside of the USA but it is tightly controlled. Panama (and other central/south American nations) has found the same problem that we had. That is it does not break down and it accumulates up the food chain. In particular, it made bird eggs brittle and was killing them. As to no alternatives, permethrin does the job nicely and breaks down and kills the same insects. Environmentalists vs. Companies who ignore or hide science.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The stupid are outbreeding the smart by about 6-1.It's just mother nature thining out the stupid.I hate to use day after tommorow as an example,but it works.SMART PEOPLE--it's 20 below and dropping,lets build a big fire and ride it out. STUPID PEOPLE-it's to cold here so we'll walk to alabama!SMART PEOPLE--don't be a bunch of idiots,it's hundreds of miles to the nearest warm climate.you'll never make it.STUPID PEOPLE--we won't listen to you!the cop has a uniform and that makes him in charge and we do what those in charge tell us to do without question!!SMART PEOPLE+5 STUPID PEOPLE=0
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Carbon dioxide is heavier than air. Right.
Except did someone forget about gas laws from chemistry... you know, DIFFUSION?
If what they claimed were true, we'd all be choking and drowning in a carbon-dioxide, sulphur-dioxide, water-vapor-laden miasma. Fortunately for us, all those gases are disperesed evenly throughout the atmosphere, thus allowing us to BREATH, dumbass.
If they can't even get that part right, what makes you think the rest of it has any validity. Oh wait, it doesn't! It's full of conjecture and generalizations of the kinds worse than you claim climatologists make! Emporer has no clothes indeed.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
If only Michael Moore had made a quick sequel to Farenheit 9/11, in which Bush is re-"elected" by stealing Ohio this time, no one would have believed it, and it would never have happened.
--
make install -not war
*correlating
-Grym
Which way is the planet going this month? I've lost track.
Chip H.
You beat me to posting this, but it's obviously Planet X! The Sun's long lost brother is coming back to kill us, everyone knew we were a binary star right? Some people also call Planet X by the name "Nibiru"
From Wikipedia:
Nibiru has an orbit around the sun of 3,600 Earth years. It is suggested that current astronomy points to the possibility that Nibiru is a brown dwarf or dark star rather than a planet. This has the implication that our solar system, like the majority in the known universe, is a binary star system; in other words, Earth has two suns with Nibiru being the second and less bright.
According to Sitchin, Nibiru/Marduk's inhabitants called Anunnaki (Ningischzida) survived and afterward came to Earth. Sitchin says some sources speak about the same planet, possibly being a brown dwarf star and still orbiting the Sun with a perihelion passage some 3,600 years ago and assumed orbital period of about 3,600 to 3,760 years or 3,741 years. Sitchin attributes these figures to astronomers of the Maya civilization, but the supposed sources are unfamiliar to Mayanists.
In a recently published book, titled 2012: Appointment With Marduk, Turkish writer/researcher Burak Eldem presents a new theory, suggesting a 3,661 years orbital period for the planet, and he claims a "return date" in the year 2012. According to Eldem's theory, 3,661 is one-seventh of 25,627, which is the total time span of "5 World Ages" according to Mayan Long Count Calendar system. The last orbital passage of Marduk, he adds, was in 1649 BC and caused great catastrophes on earth, including the Thera Eruption.
So there you have it. Planet X is coming, the internet said so. We are all going to die. Look at the bright side though, at least we won't have to watch Episode 3 or code for Longhorn.
That's known as a truism. It's the warm periods that delineate the ice ages (and vice versa). If you had two ice ages in a row, we'd just call it one long ice age. Similarly for warm periods.
Saying things like "we have less effect than one major Eruption", may be true while the eruption is going on, but few major eruptions continue for more than a few days. Our society is having an effect in the range of a major eruption, but 24/7, 365 days a year.It's like the difference to your electric bill between baking a cake, and leaving the oven on -- door open -- for an entire month.
Especially in the early days of global warming research, there was a lot of controversy over whether it was happening, and whether human activity was a (or the) prime contributor. In the last few years, however, it's become more a question of how fast and how far.
The north pole, which has survived for millenia has thinned by 30% in the last couple of decades -- at that rate it could be gone in my lifetime -- and in the meantime, it's eating a lot of the excess energy that we've been pumping into the ecosystem and capturing with the greenhouse effect.
A similar effect is occurring in antarctica. Ice shelves that have survived 3 or 4 ice-age cycles are breaking off wholesale. Right now, there's a massive 80 mile long iceberg that is threatening to starve one of the major penguin colonies (as well as possibly preventing this year's supplies from being delivered to three antarctic research station)
Consider now, an entirely different analogy:
Let's say you're driving down the road one night, and 5 people try to warn you (over the CB radio) that the bridge ahead seems to be washed out. You're in a rush (late for a hot date), and none of these people has actally seen the washed out bridge. Furthermore, one person is telling you that the road ahead is fine (your rival for the date you're going to meet). Do you keep going pedal-to-the-metal, or do you slow down enough so that you can stop if the bridge is really out?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Damn the context, eh?
However,
I'm confused... Are we saying that evil US businesses were around destroying the environment 5,200 years ago? Cuz that's the only thing that causes climate changes today, apparently!
Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. - Matthew 10:16
The consensus on human CO2 emissions causing climate change is about as solid as you can get - despite what the oil-lobby, uninformed trolls and assorted net.kooks would have you believe.
Unfortunately, science doesn't work that way. It isn't about majority rule; it's about repeatable results that others can verify. See Aliens Cause Global Warming for an excellent analysis.
Len.
Bush agrees that climate change is underway. He believes that this study proves the biblical flood, and he is bringing around the prophecied Apocalpse. It justifies everything he's doing. He's the false messiah: the antichrist.
--
make install -not war
There are already plenty of viable renewable energy resources and technologies that would convert the US from an energy importer to an energy exporter, and many more promising technologies await in the near future.
Name them. If there are plenty of them available then plenty of companies would be making plenty of money on these viable alternatives.
Day After Tomorrow came out months ago. The DVD is already released. There's no need for any more hype, it ain't gonna sell many more copies whatever Fox does.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
In regions plagued with malaria, there is an inverse relationship between the amount of DDT used and the number of deaths attributed to malaria. So this basically leaves you two options:
1) Unban DDT and save countless lives.
2) Keep preasuring developing nations into banning DDT and bear the burden of thousands of lives.
I'm not saying that DDT is a perfectly harmless substance, however, I am saying that it's hypocritical and asinine to believe that it should be banned at the cost of human life. There is nothing that we as human do that does not adversely impact the enviroment. Every enviromentalist that I've known drives a car, walks on sidewalks, uses air conditioning, enjoys public lighting, has a house, etc. Am I saying you should give up those luxuries? No! But I am saying that you are a complete ass to think that others should give up things like DDT, which are essential to LIFE, just to ease your "green conscience". There's a reason that no one really takes enviromentalists serious anymore. They get so wrapped up in their "issues" that they are blind to their own hypocricy and the cost of human life.
This "scientist" is a fool. He obviously can't be serious because there were no cars 5000+ years ago. Everyone knows that our planet is heading for a huge climate change because of American automobiles and SUVs. How can anyone take him seriously?
And another rant I have, people who think that natural phenonenom like volcanos and the Sun(tm) might help to warm our planet are just morons.
Think the US turning into a dustbowl.
You often hear Kyotoists making apocalyptic statements like this. So the dustbowl would be caused by ...? It seems to me that increased
CO2 and global temperature would result in higher
concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere
and more rain, higher crop yields.
If the Greenland ice-shelf slides into the sea you'd better be living in the Rockies with a large stash of tinned goods.
Another hyperbolic statement, and equally wrong. If Greenland flash thawed into water tomorrow the result would be less than 1 meter rise in sea level. Having said that there is no evidence the Greenland ice cap is shrinking any faster than it has been for 12000 years!
an ill wind that blows no good
Are you talking about the same Crichton behind Rising Sun (beware the wily Japanese, for they will leverage their tech to take over the world!), Disclosure (beware the waves of predatory women who will leverage sexual harassment laws against innocent men!), and Congo (beware... super-intelligent apes!)?
Yes, that last one was mean, pardon me. The first two are fair game, though.
Michael Crichton is an occasionally enjoyable author/director/producer of entertainment, but trying to glean the truth (let alone useful predictions about future events) from his work will get you about as far as trying to learn something useful about climate change by watching The Day After Tomorrow.
It's too bad that Mr. Crichton doesn't understand this; his work is at its best when he doesn't attempt to include a "timely message" (E/R, Eaters of the Dead).
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
to my knowlage, a global tempature shift happened much more recently, around the year 1000. the global tempaures rose significantly, up to the point that greenland was useable for farming.
i remember this as the (norwiegen) vikings (namely Eric the Red, and Leif Ericson) went there, then happened upon canada awhile later.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
say! you're right.
let's make sure to err on the side of stupidity instead of caution. I mean...we can't go limiting the amount of shit we belch into the air if it MIGHT NOT be destroying the world.
let's forget that it causes cancer, kills wildlife and basically makes it hard to breathe. if it's not going to kill us within a decade, let's keep it up. after all WE probably won't have to see the effects.
I mean, why be cautious at all. if I drive 120 every minute I'm in my car, it MIGHT NOT kill anyone. so until you can prove to me it will (say, a face splattered into my windshield) then I'm just gonna keep on doing it.
I really can't grasp how being cautious gets vilified. it's obvious by the way my lungs feel when I'm in a big city that stuff is bad for you. isn't that reason enough to limit it?
Name them. If there are plenty of them available then plenty of companies would be making plenty of money on these viable alternatives.
Here they are. Some of them anyway. There are many other technologies that would exist if we spent a small amount of time and money developing them, instead of supporting the oil and gas industry.
My other post also attempts to explain why free market competition isn't solving this problem. It's a lot like the problem with Windows security. There are good alternatives, but anticompetitive practices ensure that a free market economy doesn't exist.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
There is strong agreement on all these matters, but the trends are very different according to what time scales you look at (millenia vs hundreds of millions of years). Advocates will typically pick the time scale that suits them best.
It's a complicated issue. Sorry if it's not possible to dumb it down enough for you.
That usually has a slight effect things.......
Does not lend credibility to our arguments. The DDT link to the decline of birds has been debunked as well as the supposed carcinogen http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Environment/ddt_100. htm#ref6/. How many people have suffered and died from amalria because DDT was pulled of the market by flawed logic and environmentalists with an agenda?
I'm not arguing that DDT has no effect on humans or birds, only that the orginal premises are flawed and there is no proof of a harmful effect. Judicious use of DDT has not been shown to cause problems in humans or animals. Until it has, it's flawed logic to support your arguments about global warming with unproven statements about DDT.
The same can be said about the causes of global warnming. Is global warming happening? Probably. But you can't say that humans are the singular cause of it or even the majority cause. There's likely a contributory effect but no one knows what that is. A recent find by a glaciologist points to a similar warming thousands of years ago http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/quelplant.htm/ . Before the man could have had an effect. What was that warming caused by?
It's easy to go with an emotional response but don't try to base your arguments on flawed logic.
I knew those pyramids were evil.
And lawsuits! Remember, this White House loves to blame everything on lawsuits.
I'm pretty sure everyone likes to blame things of lawsuits.
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
A geek with a girlfriend? Are you sure it isn't HELL that's frozen over? :)
How does that explain why Shell or BP or whoever doesn't try to get a leg up and start putting some decent money into all the viable alternatives. These companies aren't stupid (look at their revenue and profits).
Solar is an interesting alternative and most likely is the future, but there's still one problem: it takes a long time to actually recoup the amount of energy used to make the solar panels themselves as well as paying for the initial (and ongoing) costs. I live in a northern climate and would love to have solar panels. But they just (currently) don't make sense financialy, unless I plan on staying in my current house for a couple decades.
There are already government subsidies available for helping people install solar panels (including some from my local power company, since they can buy my excess power and sell it for a decent profit).
What I would find interesting is if there was a broader, nation wide policy to help several thousand small businesses and homes convert at least part of their power usage to solar. The cost would be fairly low (in terms of government programs), would provide a huge boost to a growing industry, and it would be a good test for a large scale solar program.
Wait - what are you saying? That we don't know that we have the full picture, so we shouldn't warn of possible consequences for environmentally irresponsible behavior? Can we ever know if we have the full picture?
I agree with your cry-wolf argument, but certainly we should continue to try and understand our environment and we should certainly make testable predictions. Besides, even if high CO2 emmissions aren't causing global warming, wouldn't the air be much more pleasant and healthy to breath with it reduced?
COMPUTER! Whatever happened to Blueberry Muffin?
as a defense against the possibility of rapid cooling.
It would be irresponsible not to, wouldn't it?
When I went to RTFA, in the Google ads in the left column, I got this one:
Ads by Goooooogle
Discount Climate Change
New & used Climate Change. aff Check out the huge selection now!
www.eBay.com
I swear I am not making this up.
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I'll say. If it ever drops below 50 mph, we're boned.
Apparently Michael Crichton spent 3 years researching this issue. I'm just happy that there are people like Michael Crichton who are skeptical about the whole issue. I feel like many proponents of global warming convey they are certain they're right. I for one, simply don't know at this point. To be honest, I think that there isn't one person on this Earth that knows 100% for sure that it is or isn't an epidemic. In the face of countless politically motivated accusations regarding global warming, it's refreshing to me that someone such as Michael Crichton voices a moderate sensibility.
I'm sure I'll be moded down since I do not participate in the collective Slashdot bomb throwing on this issue but I thought I'd share my 0.02.
Lonnie is notorious for keeping a tight fist on his US taxpayer-funded data. It's almost impossible to get raw data for ice cores he drilled, even some that are 15+ years old. Since "open information" is a widely held sentiment here at \., please encourage him to share his data without having to resort to a Freedom of Information Act request.
In China, all climate changes are beneficial.
"Later tests showed that the human - dubbed Oetzi - became trapped and died around 5,200 years ago"
Are they implying that he was quickly frozen in place? Somehow they're trying to relate his death the this phenonmenon that occurred 5,200 years ago... I thought he was murdered?
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" -Andrew Tanenbaum
Anyone else notice that in the whole body of the article it never directly says which way this "major climate change" will swing? It mentions plants stuck in a glacier about 5,200 years ago, a man trapped in ice at about that time, and Kilimanjaro was really cold at the time. It also says that we had a Little Ice age a few hundred years ago as if to allude to the fact that what they're talking about is another Ice Age. But it never says "global cooling" or anything else so definitive.
The thing is though, they can't say it. Global warming is where it's at. This is valid research that's been Google-proofed against discovery by people trying to support counter-global-warming arguments. Search for climate and all you'll get is "global warming" and "major climate change" because no one can say "global cooling" and get away with it since it flies in the face of all that speculation and computer modelling we've been doing for the past decade.
Direct away from face when opening.
Wait a minute.
So your argument boils down to, "some people were wrong about some things, so nobody can be right?"
Fucking brilliant.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Your comment neatly highlights one of the major problems in science reporting and communication: many of the issues raised by reputable scientists over the past thirty years had timeframes for consequence on time scales of ten, fifty, to several hundred years.
Mainstream media often reports findings like "Scientists Predict That Ross Ice Shelf May Collapse" as if there is something imminent about to happen sometime in the current media cycle. The thing is, the reported events might not be likely to happen for a hundred (or more years).
These events are urgent to environmental scientists, where the phrase "long-term" means thousands of years. To the general media, "long term" seems to mean a financial quarter from now.
Furthermore, don't equate pollution with climate impact. Some parts of the old Soviet bloc are terribly polluted, to the point of being dangerous for people on the spot, but their overall output into the global climate system of materials that impact environmental change is small compared to the day to day output of north america (and increasingly China's) industrial output.
If what this guy says is correct, it sounds as if we have been doing the right thing by increasing the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere so that it will decrease the amount of heat being radiated out into space. When the sun's output drops precipitously, we will be a little bit warmer than we would have been otherwise. Maybe the ice will only reach to Denver instead of all the way to Dallas.
Yet again a scientist tosses his two bits into the public media scrum. Global warming one minute, global cooling the next... can these scientists please make up their minds? The global warming machine is fueled by information that our glaciers are melting, but only 10% of the glaciers are being monitored and the fact that 50% of those glaciers are actually getting larger, is cleverly omitted.
My magnanimosity is surpassed only by my immensitude
Some food for thought: The harmonic module of the mayan 'calendar' (the Tzolkin) is 260 days long. 260 * 2 = 520 (5200 years?) Christopher columbus landed in 1492 1492 was the start of a mayan time cycle lasting 520 years 1492 + 520 = 2012 December 21, 2012 is the last date in the mayan 'calendar'.
could it be?
If you think that the US is the worst polluter on the planet, you haven't visited China lately.
In the US, we have a relatively high level of visibility. Corporations that make messes get caught and censured...or, at least, caught in some fashion. There are news articles and freedom of movement here. We are considered the world's biggest polluter because people see MORE of the US on the Internet, on the radio, and on the TV.
China, however, has no level of visibility. If they have governmental regulation of pollutants, we have no idea if they enforce them. If they have (mostly government-run) companies that are polluting, we don't know about it. Heck, I bet CHINA doesn't even know how bad their pollution problem is.
Maybe they will realize there's a problem when the Gobi desert swallows the rest of the country.
-PONA-
sync, sync, reboot
+that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
You want to see real pollution, travel to former Soviet states. You will see stuff that will make you cry. You want to see new and greater abuses of the environment just jog over to China - but don't expect anyone to care.
The United States is the direct producer of 20% of the world's greenhouse gases. This is undisputable fact (accepted even by the Bush Administration). That's real pollution.
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
Gosh, I noticed a major climactic change beginning a few months ago. My prediction is that it will again change a few months from now. Oh, wait... this has happened every year that I can remember.
Well, 5k2 years is within the Biblical timeline (which places creation around 6k-10k years ago), so it's not entirely, and possibly not even at all, at odds.
How does that explain why Shell or BP or whoever doesn't try to get a leg up and start putting some decent money into all the viable alternatives.
It's called collusion. The entire industry conspires to maintain the status quo. Nobody has significant research expenditures. Nobody worries about new technologies upsetting the industry. They all sit back, engage in price fixing, and watch the profits roll in. Essentially, all the companies in one industry act together as a single monopoly. It's illegal, but it's difficult to prove, especially when the government charged with proving it is in bed with the industry.
it takes a long time to actually recoup the amount of energy used to make the solar panels
This is FUD from Big Oil. In the early 1980s, Solarex had a solar panel manufacturing facility in the southwestern US that was powered by solar cells. Admittedly, they bought raw materials like aluminum and glass that are energy intensive. They didn't shovel sand in one side and get solar panels out the other. But the economics clearly indicate that the energy payback is not that long. The financial payback is currently many years because the panels are needlessly expensive. There is nothing inherently expensive about solar panels. It's the simplest and least expensive of the semiconductor processes. Some photovoltaic materials can actually be painted onto the substrate, but they are low efficiency and not as durable. The point is, with a concerted effort at volume production, the price would decrease dramatically. Houses need roofs. Imagine putting the roofing costs toward a solar roof with panels that snap together and have RTV silicone to seal the joints. That's what I'm talking about.
There are already government subsidies available
Very few federal alternative energy subsidies exist. Many were started in the Carter administration, when the oil embargo caused a shortage in the US. But those have almost all been eliminated. To my knowledge, electric companies are still required to purchase alternative energy at grid rates, and there is a hybrid automobile tax credit (though not as large as the mega-SUV business tax credit).
We need to increase insulation in houses. It's fuelish not to do so. The payback on this investment is short. Then we need more solar thermal heating. It's easy to do, and it's attractive if integrated with the initial house design. Retrofits are often ugly, but they work well enough. Small scale wind power and small hydro power could be used a lot more than it is. India does a great job with small scale hydro power. Everyplace in the continental US receives plenty of sunshine, so solar is a universally applicable solution. Everyone can benefit from solar power. If the panels were cheap enough, imagine all the parking lots in the US covered in solar panels. Cars wouldn't be subjected to the elements, and the electric cars could charge as they park. Think of all the US jobs that would be created designing, building and installing solar power systems. As a geek, it's frustrating to see such an obvious solution not being implemented. Why? Big money.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Between this, and our 1 in 455 chance of a human species killing event with in the next 100 years http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/1 7/1453221&tid=160 ...(Yellowstone being overdue for a global smothering eruption and all).. we're pretty much screwed huh?
In the book, a massive computer simulation of the globe yielded a finding in which the earth becomes unable to support human life as we know it now by 2150 AD. 'Nuf said there.
However, before that time, there is an inflexion point in the environment when the damage being done (by humans mostly) becomes more than the planet can regenerate. At that stage, to quote Scotty, we are 'dead already'. The analogy is given of an impending doom, such as a canoeist approaching a waterfall, which I called the "Waterfall Index". But when the inflexion point is hit, it is analogous to when the river is flowing faster than you can paddle. thus I called it "The Paddler's Index". No matter how far away the waterfall is, you are 'dead already'.
When I wrote this in 1990, the Paddler's Index was horrifyingly close. To quote the 1990 edition, "2004! That was practically the day after tomorrow!" (Coincidence?)
The book then offered solutions to solve the problem, correct the damage, heal the regenerative mechanism, and push the deadline away.
Yay!
But switch abruptly to real life... Has any study been done to try to determine if we are 'dead already'? Or if there is a point in time when we reach that? I wrote this work YEARS before the Japanese built their climate supercomputer. Have they tested to see if there is a danger?
And what if... what if someone does and learns this? What do we do? A quick browse of the postings on this article alone show one of the many proverbs I wrote to be true: If the Money and Politics currently impede our progress on simple, obvious, even mutually-agreed issues such as CO2, what would we do if this Paddler's Index were real?
We must begin to take the steps that we know need to be taken. Will they cost jobs? They might. How many jobs are you willing to save at the cost of a climatologic catastrophe? The jobs you save in the refrigator industry may kill the crops that your children would put in their fridgeys.
In closing, the book uses Rush quotes to reinforce the urgency of the dilemma, and humankinds reluctance to give up what they have for what they may save... Two of the best are:
StarGlider29a
http://www.traffiscope.com/slashdot/mirror
A few good volcanoes provide visible effect that the public can see and in some cases experience.
This is just not true, and if you're so stupid as to regurgitate such outright crap it indicates you haven't bothered doing the most cursory attempt to research any, like,... 'facts'.
While I am not going to argue the other points in your post or the parent post, (you are correct in that he made an awful lot of specious claims without any supporting data) the parent is completely correct on this one.
The last time Mount Pinatubo (in the Phillippines) errupted, it threw of weather patterns in most of North America for almost a year, and put so much ash in the atmosphere that the US west coast witnessed unbelievably spectacular sunsets for months.
The last time Mount St Helens erupted, the ski slopes in Colorado got more snow than they had in over a hundred years.
So yes, one good volcanic eruption will disrupt global weather patterns more than any human activity.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
I saw this movie. Plants and people flash frozen, "dramatic climate shift already under way." Doesn't the article end with a direct quote from Dennis Quaid's character?
We have been keeping records of weather for at best a few centuries. The planet has been around for over forty million centuries. What on Earth makes us believe that the miniscule fraction of a percentage of that period that humans have deigned to scribble down temperatures anywhere near approaches what is "normal" over the space of eons, not to mention millenia, or even centuries? We have no idea what is "normal" in regards to climate.
This is not an excuse to wantonly pollute, but the "dramatic change" that causes such hystrionics in the press would seem to be a more frequent occurance than long-term stability. If we as a civilization plan on enduring for millenia, and not centuries, sooner or later we had better get comfortable with the idea that weather extremes will happen, with or without our intervention. Although our species would probably survive a climate shift, our civilizations don't seem to have the kind of mobility such survival would require.
My point would be that by its very nature climate changes, to survive we'd best get used to the idea and deal with it.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
It is a know fact this did happen before.
When Bush of Atlantis refused to sign the warming treaty with the Greeks and Egiptians.
... why all that human activity thousands of years ago was going on. You know all those caveman fires and farting. Yeah thats what caused it ...
I mean humans totally suck - lets kill them all for the planet's sake.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Environmentalism (as opposed to conservation) has deteriorated into a religion
That's Ok. Conservatism has been taken over by religion. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. George W. Bush is arguably the most religious president in history. I'll bet I can point to more conservative churches than you can point to environmentalist churches.
They can't possibly be conservatives anyway. Why? They don't seem to be conserving energy or resources or nature or government.
sit back and watch the zealot fireworks show.
The only people that are bigger zealots than the Bush administration are Israel's gov't. at #2 and Al Qaeda at #1. And boy oh boy are they putting on a helluva fireworks show! Environmentalists are a distant #4.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
It would be interesting to see the article written by someone who doesn't believe humans are causing global warming.
... ", then doesn't it seem unreasonable to conclude anything except perhpas local climate sensitivity to human activity?
"The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway."
Not a contentious statement but it punctuates the very end of the article after statements like:
"The climate system is remarkably sensitive to natural variability," he said. "It's likely that it is equally sensitive to effects brought on by human activity, changes like increased greenhouse gases, altered land-use policies and fossil-fuel dependence.
There is no closing quote on this comment so who said it? Is it commentary added after the professor's remark by the article's author. More importantly:
a) the climate system is sensitive to natural variability but a change in solar activity seems vastly larger in scale and importance than the estimated output of human greenhouse gases. Even volcanic acitivity seems prodigous in comparison (great output over a short time); and
b) since the human population was much less then than now, all agree humans were not _then_ responsible for the climate change (it seems it was decreased solar activity but that is a theory). And since "Any prudent person would agree that we don't yet understand the complexities with the climate system
In short, if the professor's data is taken at face value, it all seems to argue that perhaps the Earth's climate changes willy-nilly with or without human input. So from the information presented:
a) Was there a big climate change 5200 years ago. Yes.
b) Is there another one going on right now? Maybe (flamebait?).
c) Has any link been established between the causes of each? No.
d) Is there anything in the climate record (of 5200 yrs ago) to suggest humans are the cause now? No.
e) Is it news that the climate changes? No.
f) Besides a bit of history, have we learned anything from the professor's data about how the Earth's climatic system works? No.
Perhaps humans are vastly overestimating their global impact on a system they don't really understand.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Conservation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=conservat ion has nothing to do with "conservative" http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=conservat ive in a political sense--except, perhaps, that there are more politically conservative conservationists than there are politically liberal conservationists.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Long Live Kyoto.
Doesn't this show the Climate Change BoogieMan has little to do with humans, and we should focus on making people more ready, generally, to adapt to change?
Wealth makes health, after all.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
This theory has been largely debunked since its release in 1998.
While it makes for a good story, the evidence simply doesn't back up the claim.
From the conclusions of the ocenographers, Dr. Abrajano and Dr. Aksu:
For the Noah's Ark Hypothesis to be correct, one has to speculate that there was no flowing of water between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea before the speculated great deluge. We have found this to be incorrect."
Evidence was found of sustained, non catastrophic interaction between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for the past 10,000 years.
However the flooding of the Persian Gulf is still a compelling theory as to the Great Flood stories.
Here are some worst-case scenarios for you:
The current rapid melting of glaciers in the Peruvian Andes is projected to increase sea level by 40 cm.
Greenland's ice is melting 20% faster than predicted. Total melting of its ice would result in a 6-7m sealevel rise.
Total sealevel rise from Antarctic ice melting: 60-70m.
Worst-case, this is 77.5m so far.
Most of the world's population lives in large urban centres located in low-lying coastal regions.
Want to know what happens with a 60m rise (i.e., Antarctica)? Say good-bye to: Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Paris, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseille, Rome, Venice, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Leningrad, Helsinki, Boston, New York, coastal New England, Washington, Jacksonville, the state of Florida, New Orleans, most of Cuba, Houston, Mephis, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Porltand, Seattle, and Vancouver. And this partial listing, of course, is completely Eurocentric and North American-biased. Most of the world lives neither in Europe nor North America.
I'm not sure if this includes thermal expansion. If so, the rise would be >60m from Antarctica's melting.
This isn't going to happen overnight. But at the current rates of anthropogenic climate change, it's on its way.
My sources are respected peer-reviewed reports and articles (e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Don't rely on what I'm saying to form your opinion - do your own research and see for yourself.
And then take a footprint and see how you can cut back your contribution to the problem. Anthropogenic climate change is everyone's fault (particularly First World nations) - hence everyone should be doing something about it.
"Thompson believes that the 5,200-year old event may have been caused by a dramatic fluctuation in solar energy reaching the earth." It has long been suspected that there is a 5,200 year cycle. We know that there is another, longer cycle that runs at 36,000 years. There is yet a longer cycle that is on the scale of 150,000 years. We also know there is an 11 year cycle. It is suspected that there are other cycles. All of these climate cycles are Astronomical.
Proof has been constantly cited since the 70s and yet all the dire predictions have come to naught.
True perhaps for parts of the mass media, but not at all for scientists.
Most of the climate models have been predicting that, under even the most extreme industrial-output scenarios, the Antarctic ice cap will last for many centuries. The Arctic ice should last at least a few centuries, though in the past decade its thinning has accelerated past what most of the models predicted, and it may only last another century now.
But it doesn't take melting of all polar ice to get a disaster. Estimates are that Antarctic melting could raise the oceans by at least 60-80 meters. Even a 10-meter rise would flood out most coastal cities, and that would be disaster enough for most people.
Some models show Antarctic ice producing a drop in sea levels. The explanation is simple: Antarctica is basically a high, cold desert. Precipitation is very low, and the ice cap exists basically because the little snow that falls never melts. Most climate models predict that rising temperatures will increase evaporation, and thus will increase precipitation in most areas. If Antarctica sees an increase of precipitation but stays below freezing, its glaciers will start growing in thickness. But the models are rather weak in this area, and you'd have problems finding any climatologist willing to put money on this outcome.
Note also most of the Arctic ice is sea ice, so its melting won't raise ocean levels by much. Only the ice on land (Greenland, Antarctica and many smaller islands) will do that. The Greenland ice corresponds to about a 5-meter rise in sea level, and it is melting fairly quickly now.
You can see one (moderately conservative) estimate at this USGS page. Google can find more, though it takes a bit of digging. (And you'll learn a lot about the science in the process.)
My favorite example of a "disaster" from warming is the impending loss of one of my favorite geography trivia questions: What are the two places in the world where there are glaciers on the equator? Most people guess one place fairly quickly. (They usually say Mt Kilamanjaro rather than Mt Kenya/Kirinyaga, but that's close enough.) They usually don't get the other place for some reason. Anyway, current predictions are that the glaciers in both of these places will be gone in 2 or 3 decades. So you'd better visit them while you still can.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
But volcano interruptions tend to be sporadic. Violent, but sporadic. In a couple of years things settle back down to a more normal pattern. But if the more normal pattern is disrupted, then there IS no respite.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Before people take it as an Anti-American comment, a nicer way of putting it is, America does what it believes to be the right thing to do without considering the full consequences first.
Just cause you're on opposite sides of an arguement, doesn't mean you're not both terrible people.
...But at least Moore didn't deal with Iran through an offshore company(a mailbox)...just saying...
I remember watching a Carl Sagan video series. I believe it was called "Cosmos" or something to that effect. Anyway, Carl mentioned that global cooling was possible. This was back in the early 80s. The point is that there was a significant population of scientists who were afraid of global COOLING. This was not too long ago, yet there were significant numbers that were worried about the opposite of today's fears. As time passed, we found errors in our models, noticed an increase, and the global warming fears started up. Now, we should believe that scientists understand every interaction on a planetwide scale to make such claims? Sorry, but I'm not convinced that human activity is the major contributor to large scale global climate change. There are too many differing opinions in the scientific community. Try googling with "Global Warming Solar Activity" for some more "interesting" sites. I believe those sites are just as "factual" as the ones you cited.
In areas which are equally consensual but which have the misfortune to be hot policy topics and bad news for powerful people - such as climate change or (in parts of the US) Darwinian evolutionary theory or (in the recent past) whether smoking is bad for your health - one of the standard down'n'dirty tricks is to latch on to whatever crackpot fringe dissension you can turn up (or have manufactured) and then generate lots of FUD about how "there is no scientific consensus", "the facts are in dispute", "there are several conflicting interpretations as to what the data implies" and so on.
Scientists who see this sort of stuff being touted around when, in fact, there *is* a solid consensus tend to get a bit antsy and start talking about how the consensus is actually quite strong and that the reason its so strong is because of, you know, all these data they and their colleages have painstakingly collected over the past however many years and had published in umpty dozen peer-reviewed articles...
Hence the appearance of websites like Real Climate and similar. Of course for those who are truly invested in the idea that global warming is a pile of hooey, this emphasis on the consensus position and so on is proof positive that those hippie, tree-hugging scientists are just scare-mongering because they Hate America or something.
Regards
Luke
#include witty_one_liner.h
Paul Ehrlich was predicting that people would be dying by the millions, and that we would be running out of many mineral resources. You dismiss the parent poster's evidence ... just as he predicted you would.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
You sound like a kook yourself. You keep repeating the same URLs and the same information, as if repetition created truth. It doesn't.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Another factor in all the global warming literature is this,
some major carbon sinks are rotting, releasing methane which is another contributor to global warming. All the tundra's of Canada and Russia are warming up, and rather than burying a lot of that carbon, it is now rotting away due to the longer warm season and higher temperatures which in turns encourages a longer and hotter season next year to rot away longer. Some of these tundras bogs go a 100 feet deep; and this spells inconvenience to anyone whom is devising plans to stabilize the warming trend. Then there's the higher rate of evaporation of water which is also important to consider as h20 can prevent a lot of heat from escaping into space though fractionally increasing the albido. So really, it's not 'do we want global warming', it's how fast do we want to get there! Which isn't all bad according to some studies which reveal that those places that get rain will get more and those that don't, get less. However this raises in my mind the question 'will the variance in precipatation be increased.' Will the low amounts of precipatation be lower, exacerbating droughts, and the high amounts of precipatation be increased, causing flooding.
-techlobyte
human CO2 emissions are causing climate change, just like the world's climatologists have been saying.
Because, you know, 5,000 years ago at the beginnings of the Roman civilization, we had nuclear power plants and coal fired power plants and automobiles and international jet flights and space travel. And the Romans didn't do anything about curbing CO2 emisions at the time - and look what happened to them!
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Remember that we reached the 1 billion mark somewhere at the end of the nineteenth century. The population growth rate in the absence of resources limitation is poissonian; it's true that war and epidemics would reduce the growth rate, but come on...
Regardless of the article conclusion (or the lack of it), I would have been impressed by the many coincidences around the today-5200y time, but inaccuracies like this question the validity of most of the article (b.t.w. the Otzi argument hints again a lack of substance).
Serban
The ironic thing is that when we work together against a dire prediction, then the prediction becomes false!
this is a global warming right now, direct temperature measuring evidence is rather hard to disprove
And humans are necessarily responsible for any increase in temperature why?
Bear in mind that humans have only been part of the last few (two?) ice ages on this planet. What caused or contributed to the global warming to get us out of the ice age 25,000 years ago? Internal combustion engines certainly were not a contributing factor!
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
No-one ever suggested any of this would happen.
What flavor is your kool-aid?
As for the rest of us, we remember all the threats about imminent human disaster that were made before we were born. After all, the world's population has been decimated by the famine of the 70's, we have run out of oil long ago, and the American empire has collapsed. Oh, and the ozone hole got so big it's not safe to go outside without SPF 20,000, the earth is experiencing global warming AND cooling simultaneously.
Isn't that what the scientists have told us?
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
with melted polar ice caps, massive species extinctions, and catastrophic climatic change.
There is more evidence to suggest that such events occur naturally and periodically than there is to suggest that humans are the direct cause. The earth has undergone many ice ages, each of which caused massive species extinctions by virtue of catastrophic (to the non-adapting critters) climate change. But that's not to say that humans can't cause climate change, we just have fewer data linking us to climate change than we do for well-established natural causes.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Parent post is revealing Cheney's undisclosed location! Mod parent down unless you hate America!
Never confuse volume with power.
Even in northern climates, solar thermal power is more than capable of most residential space heating and water heating.
OK, I agree with much of your post but this bit is just crazy talk. In the far northern, non-coastal states we get 1/6 of a solar day's worth of energy each day, as compared to 9/10 in Arizona. We also have -20 degree nights in the winter. Solar is just not a real option here. The cost of battery banks, or other storage methods to save that much energy is ridiculous. If the government really wanted to help conserve energy they could be proactive with programs like Canada's subsidized beer fridges. Providing funds to help replace old, power hungry appliances would be a huge step forward in energy savings. Tax incentives and lending funds for installing geothermal heat pumps or fuel cells in new buildings, and near old ones could yield enormous energy savings. I can't think of many people up here in the north that would not like to have power, independent from the power grid for emergencies, but who has an extra 20-30 thousand dollars when building a house. (This isn't CA, people are poor and you can buy an old 5 bedroom house in some places for 20K.) It only makes sense as a very long term investment, and most individuals can't afford it. There is a great deal that could be done to help conserve energy, but solar power is not the low hanging fruit here.
I also notice you leave out all mention of nuclear power. Done correctly it could solve many of our problems. Done incorrectly and we will be poisoning ourselves and our groundwater. Don't rule it out.
Aside from those two points, I think you made quite a few very valid observations. Why isn't something being done? Probably because it is not affordable for most people and nothing is being done by the U.S. govt. to help the situation.
I think this is wery simple, cause we don't know. What we do know is that we will do no harm if we try to make as litle impact on the global enviorment as posible, even if we are not capabel of making any real inpact on it. On the other hand, if we are capabel of making an impact, posibly a sever one, and we do nothing. Well, one dos not have to be a scientist to understand that this would not be very god :)
www.aleo.no
can you say "noah's flood"? according to biblical timetables, 5,200 years is about right... rather interesting find... as for the whole global warming thing - stop using hairspray dang it! ;)
No-one ever suggested any of this would happen. The ozone hole has stabilised and perhaps started to shrink because the world took notice of warnings from atmospheric physicists and chemists and agreed to phase out the use of CFCs. It was called the Montreal Protocol and is an excellent examlpe of worldwide action to counter an imminent threat to the whole planet.
I defy you to find any evidence that the Montreal Protocol or any other political action has directly led to the reversal of ozone layer depletion.
Furthermore, you dismiss the comment on volcanic eruptions and provide no basis in fact supporting your insulting statement:
This is just not true, and if you're so stupid as to regurgitate such outright crap it indicates you haven't bothered doing the most cursory attempt to research any, like,... 'facts'. You have humiliated yourself in public, well done.
I think you might have humiliated yourself. Volcanic eruptions DO have an IMMEDIATE, VISIBLE and GLOBAL effect on the environment. This is 100% scientific FACT. A rare but large single volcanic eruption CAN have the same effect on the environment in some ways as years of human activity. These efects were measured with the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo which caused a dramatic depletion in the ozone layer over the arctic. Scientists believe that the effects of non-CFC volcanic aerosols were magnified by CFCs, but no political accord can remove CFCs that are already there, and it'll take decades for them to break down. Horse it out, closing the barn door ain't gonna help much.
Incidentally, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo caused global COOLING at the same time due to "haze effect". It also emmitted an unusually high level of sulphur and nitrogen compounds which also cause climate disruption and acid rain. The overall effects of natural and man-made activity are really too complex to fully understand.
Here is what has been observed about volcanoes and weather:
* Global temperatures after Pinatubo
* Single eruption overpowered El-nino AND human-related greenhouse effect for TWO YEARS
So to say natural a phenomenon cannot dwarf the impact of human activity is total crap. At least in this case it probably slowed global warming by five years and helped climatoligists improve their models, even at the expense of the ozone layer.
The other thing to note is that the ozone hole has not been shown to affect climate in and of itself--it is more of a threat because of increased radiation exposure. I think a better reason to limit CFC emissions is the effect they have at lower altitudes (they contrubute to the greenhouse effect). To me it seems that LOW-altitude CFCs should be the biggest concern, being they are heavier than air and are probably more likely to sit on the ground for awhile before they'd ever reach the stratosphere. Their HFC replacements also contribute to the greenhouse effect but to a lesser degree.
It's sad, but I think global warming and the ozone layer are politically overhyped at the expense of some other more immediate environmental issues. Pesticide use, acid-rain causing emissions and other industrial pollutants are well known for their impacts on the environment and are largely cleaned up in the western world, but in China, Russia, other developing nations the amount of pollution is still atrocious. Oddly enough, these nations either refuse to participate in cleaning up, or are granted exceptions (Kyoto accord for example).
I was mainly referring to your sig (implying Solomon being big enough to consume the verses you linked to), but yeah, I agree with your assessment that this 'climate change' is well within Biblical timelines. Interesting, don't you think?
However,
It's funny! Laugh!
That's about as "funny" as making jokes about Bhopal or Chernobyl, except that those are history; this is history in the making and has a good chance of killing billions of people and wiping entire nations off the face of this earth.
People have to stop working themselves up into lather, foaming at the mouth, and laugh at the occasional gems of wit that we come across
Even if it were about a subject where it would be appropriate to make jokes, that kind of "wit" is just plain stupid.
NOT EVERYTHING IS A PERSONAL POLITICAL ATTACK LEVELED AT YOU!!
Nothing in my response indicated that I took the posting to be a "personal attack". In fact, I took it for what it is: an indication that the poster is ill-informed and has a political agenda to push.
Wood heat is less convenient and a bit messier, but there are high tech wood solutions. We started down that path in the late 1970s but cheaper fossil fuels got us hooked again. Lots of people work out in the gym for exercise. Why not split & stack wood? Save the gym membership fee, get your exercise, and heat your house.
Talk of batteries and expensive solar panels is not relevant to thermal solar heating. That's photoelectric power generation. Yes, it's expensive now, but only because it's done in prototype quantities. With volume, the price would drop drastically. How expensive and powerful were PCs in 1980? Same sort of thing.
If cost is the issue, and it almost always is, the answer is more insulation. A $20K house that's drafty is no bargain. For the same $20K, you can build a straw bale house. A very small amount of solar heat is all that's needed to heat such an energy efficient house.
I didn't get into the nuclear power issue because it is a huge can of worms, and is loaded with political issues. Yes, Japan and France use a ton of it, and do it safely. The US had Three Mile Island, which wasn't a catastrophe, but was an expensive mess that essentially ended nuclear plant construction in this country. Russia had Chernobyl, and that WAS a catastrophe. A bigger issue for me than a nuclear explosion is the problem of storage. The waste is toxic for thousands of years. We have had problems storing it for 50 years. If there was a solution to the waste storage issue, I'd be more in favor of nuclear fission.
We should be spending a lot of money on fusion research. The waste products have much shorter half lives, and would be toxic for a much shorter time span. The energy potential is phenomenal. Unfortunately, The US pulled out of the international fusion research project. Not much of a loss there, because even though some of the basic research at the university level was good, political bickering has kept the committee from even deciding where the research facility would be built. That nonsense has been going on for several years. The US recently reduced funding for its own fusion program as well. I know we suddenly ran up a record deficit, but not funding fusion research seems very short sighted to me. Unless of course the goal is to keep us all sucking on the fossil fuel teat. I feel another conspiracy theory coming on. Where did I put my tin foil hat?
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this one turns out.
"to consume the verses" typo? "to consume single-handedly the food listed in the verses" is what I meant...
The idea that we "don't lose anything" by expending resources on something that turns out to be not caused by human actions (or caused by human actions to a much smaller degree than believed) means that resources that would be devoted to other problems, wants, and needs aren't going to be there. There's always a cost. TANSTAAFL.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Well, it is easy to believe that science does not make correct claims when they are not sure about cooling or warming at all.
What the point is here is that the balance breaks. At a certain point one or more of our CO_2 and NO_2 buffers will be depleted. What exactly will happen at that point is not easy to research but those buffers are there for a good reason: limit extremes! They make sure high or low values of CO_2 and NO_2 will not have a high impact on smaller eco-processes. Analogies can be made with the buffer in your soundcard: as soon as it is depleted your music stops or pops.
Its not heating or cooling we should be afraid of, but extremes.
This is a replacement signature.
These were all taught as fact in the California school systems I attended in the late 70's, 80's, and early 90's.
I went to many schools in the California school system. Each taught this.
Imagine what they are teaching those poor Californians kids now adays? That's my my kids are being raised in a different state.
You certainly don't attempt to back up any of your assertions about weaking emissions standards, lead, government funding of religion etc. The problem here isn't one of logic, the problem is of the premises. What if I don't accept your premises, your unverified assertions upon which your arguement rests. What do you have to offer to me?
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Thermal solar heating is used effectively in Alaska above the artic circle except for the time the sun is below the horizon for months at a time, so I know the northern continental US is feasible
Thermal solar heating in Alaska requires a large surface area, and works in areas without nearly as much average cloud cover. It is really only used because of the difficulty of getting electricity and fuel a long distance across rough country. It has real problems at night though, which are mitigated by Alaska's long summer days. They use alternate methods during the winter.
Wood heat is less convenient and a bit messier, but there are high tech wood solutions.
It is commonly used, but it has it's own pollution problem, almost as bad as fuel oil. It also tends to release a lot of irritating particles into a house unless you have some pretty well made (expensive) heat exchangers.
Talk of batteries and expensive solar panels is not relevant to thermal solar heating.
...unless you want to stay warm at night too, or have the heat last through a five day blizzard.
For the same $20K, you can build a straw bale house.
I'm not familiar with straw bale construction, but I'm not at all sure it would be suitable in a wet, subarctic environment. There are a great many alternative building techniques that can be employed, if you have the time and money to build your own home. Not too many people have that much leisure time though.
When I hear rants about alternative energy, switching to solar power, or cold fusion, or microwave beams or whatever, I get very depressed. There are so many people putting so much time and effort into promoting things that are not practical right now. I'm not saying that research into them is not a good idea. Alternative energy sources should get some high priority funding, but there are so many ways energy can be conserved, right now, with a little financing. So many practical, easy to implement technologies are ignored. Take, for example, the Canadian beer fridge initiative. For chump change Canada reduced it's power consumption by instituting a program to replace old appliances. It cost less that 1% of building a new power plant and citizens get a nicer fridge out of it. That is practical. Building 50 meter by 50 meter energy solar concentrators hooked up to banks of batteries to power them at night is not practical.
I actually know someone who built such a system (only 10X10 meters), it powered all of their appliances and gave them a small profit back from the power company (a few dollars a month). The initial cost was almost 30K. They will make that back in about a thousand years. They still used wood for heating.
Why is it 80% of the people I talk to, who are interested in alternative power, seem to live on another planet, where they don't have to worry about money, or being practical?
From reading the posts here it seems George Bush must be King George. How does someone who has been in office for 4 years become responsible for actions caused by all of mankind since the dawn of the industrial age? If the US stopped all burning of fossil fuels tomorrow, would it change anything? Does the president make all the laws? If 2/3 of congress had some balls, you even pass an amendment. But would it stop the rest of the world from continuing to burn fossil fuels? How do you reverse what is already done? Seems to me the real solution is to reduce the world human population to about 65 million and develop alternative energy. How do you do this without killing alot of innocent people. It's easy to post blame, it's quite another to accept it. How many of you folks own electric vehicles? How many who complain about fossil fuels would choose tomorrow to live without them? I live in Virginia, in Newport News, 10 years ago you could drive all along the interstate and trees were everywhere. Now you have to get almost to Williamsburg to see anything remotely like a woods. In town trees are cut down everywhere, nothing but asphalt replaces them. This is but one town in one state, in the US. Now multiply that by the entire world. When I was in the service while we were converting to CO2 for HVAC units, the countries were were operating in were using freon. So really who is to blame? I too am to blame, but I don't see a real solution here. Do I deny my kids civilization and move in to a grass hut, hunting small game not endangered? Would that prevent a glacier from melting?
I'm not familiar with straw bale construction, but I'm not at all sure it would be suitable in a wet, subarctic environment.
At first, damp conditions were a problem, but it's caught on very well because it is so inexpensive, has such a high R value, and it's very easy for unskilled homebuilders. Canada had never encountered it as a building method, so they required the first people applying for a building permit to test it. I think they had fears of straw bursting into flames. After the testing, Canada certified it as a fire break. Compressed bales just won't burn. Building techniques now make straw bale construction applicable in damp environments.
The initial cost was almost 30K.
Once again, the very high costs and long payback periods are the result of the very low volume. Consider what has happened with the price of just about any technology when the volumes increase. There is nothing inherently expensive in current photovoltaic solar power technology. The price would plummet once it's a commodity.
Why is it 80% of the people I talk to, who are interested in alternative power, seem to live on another planet, where they don't have to worry about money, or being practical?
On the contrary, I think the technology I proposed is very practical. I'm an engineer. I like real world solutions. I love doing things cheaper and better. What I see as impractical is continuing with fossil fuel technology that is expensive, destroys our balance of trade, results in dire geopolitical consequences and wrecks the environment. There are so many practical things we could be doing to save energy, money, and the environment. We shouldn't be lining the pockets of a few sheiks who perpetuate class inequality that leads to resentment and political unrest. We should be energy independent. We can automate our alternative energy equipment factories so the jobs are good jobs and they stay in the country where the products will be used. This looks like a win for everyone but guys like Haliburton, Enron and the Saudi royal family. We should stand up on our hind legs and demand this technology.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
So what you're saying is, everyone agrees, except for the people who don't agree?
While I agree that the evidence for human caused climate change is quite strong, "infinite are the arguments of academics", and saying that everyone who doesn't agree with the majority view is an establishment tool or an idiot isn't exactly my idea of a convincing scientific argument. If you're trying to win converts (a worthy goal, may I add...), then insulting their intelligence seems like a non-optimal way to go about it. How about posting the informative links and cutting down on the polemic, so you look less like a net kook and more like an informed concerned citizen?
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
You have any archeological evidence for this odd claim? Most sources put the 1st Egyption dynasty at around 3000 BC, meaning you are off by a few thousand years. Thats a bit more than "just slightly before".
Regardless, human beings and animals lived places other than Egypt back then. Europe was still in the Mesolithic Age, some of the more advanced societies were still in the Neolithic.
"I don't think the the wording is bad at all ; a volcano can alter the climate suddenly, a tidal wave can as well. If you associate alteration of the climate with human or mammoth intervention that's your interpretation and not the author's fault."
Whether or not it is technically correct is irrelevant, the connotation to the phrase "was altered" is that some outside force effected the environment. A volcano or a tidal wave are forces within the environment.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Still, much of human kind was still in the stone age, and the Bronze age was just beginning in more developed parts of the world.
The second part of my post stands as written before.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Your comments are well and good (mostly) from a macro perspective. Investing in and researching alternate energy is an important goal for the U.S. From the standpoint of an individual, however, economies of scale do not help me (or most Americans) to be able to afford them. Nor does it make them practically applicable for me to install. If the government decided, today, to spend 100 billion to conserve energy and reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuels, I still would not want that money going to buy solar panels around here. It could be more effectively spent in my part of the country on geothermal heat pumps or fuel cells (both of which are proven and effective). For that matter it could be better spent on replacing refrigerators. Your idea of practical is all well and good for long-term strategy, but it is not applicable now, for individuals. That is where we should be starting with this problem.
No-one ever suggested any of this would happen.
Not that these "scientists" would ever admit. Forget the public record--it doesn't exist, so long as it stays buried in morgues and archives.
I defy you to find a single reputable scientist...
They're only reputable if politically correct. If not in lockstep with the doomsayers then they have no reputation. Meanwhile, the "correct" thinkers, even when proven wrong, are regarded as reputable, regaled as genius and given the highest rewards.
These are what we call 'straw man' arguments
In liberal, politically driven pseudoscience.
These Sara Bernhardt "scientists" are convinced they are proven right by dint of their incessant yammering and deceptions--if you say it often enough and keep shouting down those who do not wholeheartedly agree then it becomes scientific fact. Massage the data and hide the facts, hell, just make something up to provide supporting evidence! Create proof to support a preconceived "fact". Yet their assertions wither to dust under truly objective scrutiny.
Nowadays you are reputable only if your are head and shoulders deep up your ass (or better yet, someone else's).
Nobody cares if Einstein was wrong and admitted it.
Everyone is fully vested in being wrong.
Addition to #1:
Biodiesel.
It's effectively a form of Solar Power, which leverages existing infrastructure.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"In 1991, hikers found the preserved body of a man trapped in an Alpine glacier and freed as it retreated."
Ol' Oetzi sure was a spry character!
I Googled on Lonnie Thompson's name, and came across some National Geographic articles. One notes,
"When Thompson's reports of glacial recession on Kilimanjaro first emerged in 2002, the story was quickly picked up and trumpeted as another example of man destroying nature. It's easy to see why: Ice fields in the tropics--Kilimanjaro lies about 220 miles south of the Equator--are particularly susceptible to climate change, and even the slightest temperature fluctuation can have devastating effects. 'There's a tendency for people to take this temperature increase and draw quick conclusions, which is a mistake,' says Douglas R. Hardy, a University of Massachusetts climatologist, who has been monitoring Kilimanjaro's glaciers from mountaintop weather stations since 2000. 'The real explanations are much more complex. Global warming plays a part, but a variety of factors are really involved.'
"According to Hardy, forest reduction in the areas surrounding Kilimanjaro, and not global warming, might be the strongest human influence on glacial recession. 'Clearing for agriculture and forest fires--often caused by honey collectors trying to smoke bees out of their hives--have greatly reduced the surrounding forests,' he says. The loss of foliage causes less moisture to be pumped into the atmosphere, leading to reduced cloud cover and precipitation and increased solar radiation and glacial evaporation."
National Geographic Adventure: Kili is Crumbling
The quoted text is linked to another article:
National Geographic Adventure: The Ice Man
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
You bring up some good points. However, the Earth has experienced much more extreme weather without human intervention. Is fear of an extreme valid if the extreme is really not that extreme in terms of the planet?
Everyone knows that global warming is real and that it is caused by humans. Humans who work for corporations and humans knows as "The Bush Administration" or "Republicans."
There is no other cause for climate change.
Science has proven this.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
In terms of the planet: no. I guess there are plenty of organisms which are designed to survive such extreme conditions (read: one-celled organisms, bacteria).
In terms of the human race: fear is valid. We still depend on a huge amount of bio-processes to survive (oxygen is a simple one, drinking water another). Another issue is our huge population. At first this seems to be an advantage (less chance of extinction), but note that on a logarithmic scale chances can be very extreme. Most chances occur exponential, not lineair (and so I believe for populations, but I'm not an expert). Balance can change *really* quickly and balance doesn't always take races into account (read: complete eco-systems).
This is a replacement signature.
Do Greenland ice cores show over one hundred thousand years of annual layers? They say that since the old-earth interpretation of ice cores assumes ancient layers of ice have been greatly compressed but point out that storms and other events can add thin layers. Quoting
"Increased hurricane frequency" huh that will never happen, oh wait that did just happen in florida this season. Now if three hurricanes in a roll don't tell ya something then you all are going to be the ones underwater and still saying that it will never happen. IT should seen as a possible threat and maybe it would turn out to be not such a one at all. That after much study, for we found out after some time that the Ozone hole wasn't so much our fault as it was that the arctic enviroment that started it and we just helped it along. Now it has stabilized thanks to our measures to curb our output of CFC's. Now if only some people would stop bashing things like this so much and open their glued shut eyes and look towards this as real. And if you want to prove your right show us stories that say otherwise and not some weekly world news article. Their are alot more news items about this than those discounting such facts. Read and put forth actual news and not some off beat carp you think is real...
Actually, the fairly clear timeline you're thinking of is the one that goes back to those hominids Leakey found in the Rift Valley from a couple of million years ago, taking in a 10,000 year old Neolithic settlement in Turkey (Catal Huyuk) with the world's very first town plan on its way to the present.
The Bible is a bunch of charming fairy-tales.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Okay, so we agree. For the planet, we don't have to care. For the human race, we should pay attention. Just like the dinosaurs. They were the dominant life forms at one point. Then the environment shifted and, before they can blink, they are fossils in museums. There is a difference, however. We can adapt. Let's say that the oceans do actually rise, as predicted by the global warming theory. Do you expect a sudden "Day after Tomorrow" type shift, or a gradual (weeks-months-years) change? Given the rate of change we are seeing, I would guess the latter (months-years). Unless something drastic were to happen (say, a meteor strike), in which case, we are screwed anyway. Now, given the tenacity of animal and plant life, as long as a proper level of oxygen and drinking water can be found(which would be the case if the changes are gradual ie months-years), I think humanity will survive. As long as the population is not packed into a small area on the planet and instead is spread out around the globe, someone will survive. So fear for the human race (from my perspective) in general is not so great. If you are worried about large segments of our population, well... large segments are already pretty screwed anyway. I always smirk whenever I hear people around me (in the US) talk about being poor. I think back to my trip to India to visit my family there. A peson has no idea of poor until they see it in a "developing" country. These are large segments of the population that have almost no chance of improving their lives. I am digressing now, and I apologize. Getting back to the subject, I think the only individuals that are concerned about the "assumed" level of approaching chaos are the ones that are already comfortable. Like, say, people that can spend hours typing away on silly machines discussing the fate of humanity;) I think the real fear people have is for their "way of life". For instance, people in the US would be upset if, say, California were sunk in the ocean. Okay, not all of us, but quite a few. And people would be upset if they have to move north to avoid high temperatures. But, unless I am missing something, all the changes that are forcast are manageable in the sense that people can move to higher elevations and north (or south) to avoid increased temps. The ones that are in power right now won't like it since their precious land will become useless in many cases, but so what? One last thought to ponder. From what I've read, the sun does have some contribution to the climate on this planet. It varies depending on your source, but it seems that, if it were not for humans, there would still be some warming. Look at Mars, for example. http://www.mos.org/cst/article/80/9.html My question is: What should the steady state temperature of the Earth be, if no humans were around? Given the state of the sun and the solar system, could it be possible that the Earth is really correcting for being a little too cold? I'm thinking of a kettle on a stove. Right when the heat is applied, the water in the kettle has not changed in temp too much. But gradually, it does increase. Okay, if you made sense of that last bit, you are quite intelligent. Because I am plain tired:) I have to use this quote on the subject of fear. My English teacher would never forgive me if I missed this opportunity. I apologize if you get this all the time from the nickname: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when ...
it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."
And with that, I look forward to more debate...
I think raising gas prices is needed but is not going to be an acceptable solution unless alternate transportation is provided. Our cities are just not layed out to make it possible to live in the range most people can travel without automobiles. They really should give a few years notice that fuel prices are going to rise and put in place some kind of encouragement that cities improve their mass transit systems. Either way fuel prices are going to rise so giving some offical warning would be a good idea although I expect most people would just bitch and moan and then ignore the warning.
True. I'm all for telecommuting as much as possible. Unfortunately many jobs require a physical presence as do other reasons to travel. We have adapted to sprawling and it'll take a while to redesign our cities and national transit system.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
However, even tho it is real and is coming, we could avert it if we really wanted to. We could switch to a non-polluting engine; http://www.newpath4.com/icyhot7.htm has a page showing how a steam-enhanced, compressed-nitrogen (easier yet, just plain air) could be that engine. But we could do something else there friend. There are many places on Earth that do not have enough WATER, so we could start now in escavating new canal systems through these areas and USE THAT EXCESS WATER to bring life to arid areas. The increased moisture off of thousands of miles of canal water would evaporate and increase the rainfal. By increasing rainfall we would shift the excess ocean water from the oceans back into the water cycle: http://www.newpath4.com/icyhot4.htm . If, and when, people start putting on their thinking caps you might discover that we can fix Planet Earth, fix our lives, fix our health, fix our families, and even then find World Peace: http://www.newpath4.com/01stsolutiontowar_binarypa thwayanswertoworldpeace.htm. Visit the newpath4 website for more information. Turning negatives into positives, death into life, engaging the God-given brain we all can tap to make this planet into a great place. Riley
is less than one percent of the total earth's.
This is my sig.
> Biodiesel
Which requires more energy input to harvest, process, and produce than it ultimately yields.
Biodiesel is just a case of (right or wrong) the government propping up farming operations (dubbed "family farms").
- ash != CO2.
- a year != 'climate'
- Colorado != 'global'.
(I could also mention that the plural of anecdote is not data, but that would be snideGranted a major volcanic eruption affects *weather patterns*, and possibly for longer than a year - there are strong suggestions that an Icelandic eruption disrupted weather patterns for as much as a decade in, IIRC, the early second millenium (sorry, haven't precuise year) and Krakatoa's 1888 eruption had effects for three or four years. But this is *not the same* as the effects of human CO2 emissions affecting global climate's steady state. CO2 doesn't come leave the atmosphere because of gravity, or get rained out.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
However there was never any question that (if it happened) it would be due to anthropogenic factors. Since the early 80s climatology and paleoclimatology has come a long way. For one thing, consider how far computing's come in that time,and contemplate how much better the models must therefore be. Factor in that there has been an enormaous project over pretty much the same period to investigate what effects the (unquestioned) massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere by humans in the last 200 years is likely to have had. (Ask yourself: how could any rational person think that almost doubling CO2 could NOT have an effect?)
Finally, the solid world-wide consensus amongst reputable climatologists, backed by vast quantities of data and peer reviewed studies in reputable journals (they don't get much more definitive than 'Science' and 'Nature') wasn't there 20 years ago. Neither were any climatologists so... consistently, persistently, and emphatically urging thatwe have got to do something about it, NOW .
Good background with details about the theory of global cooling, can be found here
If your point is simply: 'science has moved on in the last twenty years, therefore we can never trust science' then, fine, enjoy your early 80s lifestyle without the benefit of computers, networks, medicine, etc etc.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
If I dismiss someone's "evidence", that dismissal is not invalidated just because he predicted it. Obviously.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Yep, I reposted the same URLs several times which I agree looks a it lame; I won't do that again. But I'm sick of seeing the same strawman arguments by uninformed twits, and those URLs do provide a lot of information that, were the posters of bullshit to be aware of, wuold save us all the trouble of refuting them. OTOH those who dismiss the hard science (as opposed to just not knowing about it) can be safely filed under 'kook' as far as I'm concerned.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
> people who don't agree?
No, I'm saying the vast majority of the people who don't agree have no credibility. I'm aware of *one* possible serious work that might provide some interesting arguments ('The Sceptical Environmentalist'), and it's on my Xmas list. (However, the person who brought it to my attention claimed that an entire edition of 'Scientific American' was devoted to refuting his arguments - he held this up as evidence of the *rightness* of the sceptical arguments, which isn't the way my brain works. But I'll try to read it with an open mind when I get it.
More precisely, then: "Everyone who I have looked into so far who doesn't agree, puts forward arguments or data that have no credibility."
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
And there in lies the problem - businesses are located where they are, sometimes not for necessity, and not for customers' convenience, but because the boss/owner wants to live in neighborhood 'A' and doesn't want to commute. All their employees may live in neighborhoods close together, but far from 'A'. Thus, we get the scenario where roughly 99% have a 15+ mile commute because the business is near the ceo/owner's residence, where no one else working for them can afford to live.
If businesses were encouraged to set up where the employees live, commuting time would vanish. And this is not a question of being economical either, as there happens to be a slew of commercial space free right near where the majority of potential employees live...
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I haven't seen that, I have seen some coverage suggesting that he was easing strict new regulations (so that they would be less strict than the original proposal but stronger than current law.) But I haven't seen any on actual regression in environmental laws. If someone has some data on this to the contrary I'd really like to see it. (Cause I probably wouldn't be too happy if that was the case). I know this is kinda a late response, but oh well.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Hmm, first of all: paragraphs are useful!
Next thing: don't forget we're actually dependent on more than oxygen and water alone. We require tremendous amounts of amino-acids only found in higher-order plants. Even if we could synthesize it will require energy and order.
Second of all, on the matter of drinking water. Drinking water is actually not abundant. 99,9% of the water on our planet is salt water which need to be desaltized, which is a difficult and energy intensive process. As our population becomes larger, it is not strange when oil wouldn't be the dominant drive behind our economy, but water. When sea-levels rise, a huge number of natural lakes will become polluted. Modern agriculture is impossible without normal salt-free water. Because of the higher temperatures, desserts will extend to larger areas. The faster extremes will cause more landshifts which will polute even more water.
And on the subject of fear: I agree. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side to make another quote. When supplies of fresh drinking water, oil reserves and nutritious food because of bad harvests start to diminish, relations between countries will diminish too. With this difference that Einsteins formulas have not been forgotten.
Regarding steady state temperature: actually, the temperature does not 'gradually' increase. Actually, when a constant amount of heat is added to a certain object, this object will receive this heat, turn it into energy and into heat again. It is easy to make miscalculations here because of the experimental setup. For example: if the water is turbulent and there is a fixed position for measuring the temperature it could appear that the water temperature is gradually increasing (the first derivative is not constant but increasing from zero). Unfortunately, the first derivative is constant for the system as a whole. Therefore I regard your question on 'what would the temperature of the earth be if no humans were around' on a different plane: would the temperature be different given no influence from human activities. In that regard I should point you to numerous and numerous research papers (which I have no time to search for right now). All those papers point to a radical increase in the amount of carbon-dioxide in the past 150 years and also a noticeable increase in temperature over the past 50 years (measureable period). Given studies done on ice-samples, these changes are also radical compared with the past 1.5 million years of samples (given CO2 levels). We can thus conclude that at least human activity has an impact on CO2 levels in our atmosphere. Several other studies make believeable claims on the relation between CO2 levels and temperature.
Also, changes in nature are very likely to be attributed to a radical change in our climate: gletchers which increase in speed by an exponential rate, more damage done by nature disasters, changes in climate (for example: our climate in the Netherlands has become more mild during the past 30 years).
And again on fear: I am not afraid of nature, I'm afraid of ignorance of the population. Individualism has brought us the option to choose between a hamburger with and without onions, and it has given us the ignorance on subjects that do matter: democracy, nature, quality of life, freedom in the true sense (freedom to vote, freedom of privacy).
Ok, this has become a long rant as well, hope to continue this discussion!
This is a replacement signature.