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NASA Says 2005 Could Be Warmest Year Recorded
Ant writes "CNN reports that a weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s." From the article: "While climate events like El Nino -- when warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific Ocean --affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part."
Frequently asked questions about the science of climate change
I find it very helpful.
Isn't it time to use hydrogen as fuel? Hydrogen + oxygen = pure water
The problem with hydrogen is that no "natural" hydrogen available. Hydrogen essentially acts like an efficient battery and the energy used up creating it (via electrolysis of water, or the current cheapest way it's produced now, seperation of natural gas) is simply transferred into as potential chemical energy. Electrolysis is like charging up hydrogen, where water is the "used up" battery.
When you factor in the costs of transporting it along pipes or in trucks, well, my guess is that it soon starts to diminish in terms of just how good it is. I just assume hydrogen is the "next step" because it's the only step that will keep oil companies ("energy companies") in business. They get to use up all the natural gas, and they get to keep the fuel-style infrastructure in place.
The best bet for humanity in my opinion is to use the current electricity infrastructure and use the most efficient battery (electrochemical, kinetic, or etc.) in a car. That way power plants create the energy and it's just passed along to the car, since a) power plants can be more efficient in creating energy, b) energy can come from different sources (solar, wind, tidal etc.) and c)the wires are all in place already. Granted, if the best battery is hydrogen, then by all means, fuel cells would be great. If hydrogen can be created at home efficiently, instead of piped and trucked around all day, then it would be good. Other than that, I have my doubts about hydrogen. I just don't think it can be manufactured and transported efficiently enough when we have a perfectly good energy delivery system (power lines) in place already, and essentially all hydrogen is is a battery.
Global warming can be a difficult concept to discuss because it can have such far reaching implications and primarily deals with what we, as humans, have a very difficult time understanding, the future. Barring some new technology that makes renewable energy very inexpensive, it seems nothing significant is going to change.
Here's a website I found with a good summary/organization of global warming impacts happening everywhere. http://www.odysen.com/news/Environment.php
There's no denying that global warming is happening (at least in the short term). It's the cause that that's uncertain. The dinosaurs had much higher global warming but we have yet to find a single dinosaur factory or dinosaur SUV. Unless the dinosaurs ate a huge number of baked beans, I don't know how they could be responsible for generating a significant amount of greenhouse gases..
Are you stupid? There is no longer any doubt that mankind is at least largely responsible for climate change. Let me give you some more perspective on some of your other idiotic comments:
bah.
shit analogy, the earth isn't an organism like that.
and humans aren't the first species to affect the globe either - but humans ARE the most(or damn nearly) adaptable race(without having to evolve ourselfs) on earth ever(spread wide, capable of making a living off from just about anything and cruel enough to kill each other if need be).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Before you base your response to a very serious environmental situation on a work of fiction, please read this. Crichton uses a bunch of proven-false arguments, and wraps a transparent opinion piece in a layer of fiction, yet still tries to make a political point. And in the process he basically slanders a whole bunch of very earnest, hard-working scientists. It's really quite despicable.
Personally I think there has to be a balance where we work to protect the enviroment but do not have to tramatize our kids with scary tales of the world ending in their lifetimes.
I grew up in the 80's; the nukes could fly any minute (that really could've happened). I turned out just fine. So I'm not too worried about traumatizing kids. Besides, the consensus view states that there would be a 2-6 deg increase in global average temperture, not "that the world will end". You can infer from such a rise that the disruption will be very severe, but I think it is simply idiocy to argue that we shouldn't warn people "just because it might scare the kids".
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
You REALLY need to get some facts straight.
"healthful" - bullshit. Despite what even some doctors claim, circumcision does not bring any health benefit. It is also potentially lethal (by related hemorrhage and infections) and monstrously painful.
"better sex" - just the opposite. The foreskin is extremely sensitive erogenous tissue. Circumcision seriously decreases man's capacity to feel sexual pleasure.
"more women" - and in certain parts of the world a woman can not find a husband if she is not mutilated. American women prefer circumcised men because they were taught that this is normal, so it is just a matter of teaching them that it is NOT normal!
: Dude, its not even a choice. - that's right, in a way: helpless babies have their body integrity brutally violated - and are never given a choice. Anyone who performs circumcisions - be it a doctor or a jewish mohel, each driven by equally preposterous and disproven myths - is a child abuser a hundred thousand times worse than any Michael Jackson.
Circumcision is child abuse.
No, it wasn't. It was based on a mixture of outright falsehoods ("Global warming is defined by the global mean surface temperature...[]..it's effect is presumably the same everywhere in the world"), and selective use of facts in such a manner as to be outright misleading (Antarctic cooling does NOT contradict the idea of global warming; in fact it is consistent with the results from models, which show local cooling there). Again, read this rebuttal , written by scientists active in the area.
And that there are many scientists who do not believe in global warming.
It is a consensus among published papers by atmospheric scientists and climatologists that there are increasing levels of CO2 and global warming.
On a more precise note, asking a climatologist whether or not he "believes in global warming" is like asking an economist if he believes in inflation. Global warming is happeneing; the question is a) whether it is unusual, b) whether it is caused by humans, c) whether it will be harmful. The majority of scientists in the field would answer "yes" to all three, but not every single scientist you can find will do so. (There are always cranks - to this day there are scientists who claim the Sun is made primarily out of iron). There are also some uncertainties to some of those answers - just that most scientists think that the predominance of evidence points to humans causing problems.
Just like they said in the 70s which has proven to be false.
Puhleeeaaase not this old canard again. Read a rebuttal here. Same website, but its a collection of rebuttals to the most common claims by contrarians, most of which you've manged to parrot pretty well.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
...where it goes over 120degF every summer. The kangaroos don't seem to mind much.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Well, if you look at the graph of temperatures, then there is indeed a warming trend between 1900 and 1950 that comes before human GHG emissions would be expected to have caused any effect; but the warming post-1980 is far greater than what would be predicted by the 'sunspot-only' model. Indeed, if all natural forcings are used, then we should have seen a very slight drop in temperatures over this period. Climate modellers do indeed look at external influences.
Instead of wisely shaking your head and opining that it's just human nature for the EU to do this, try finding some actual evidence for your assertions. Show me some evidence that Europeans are obsessed with lowering their oil prices (yes, they are a lot higher in Europe, but they always have been, and people don't drive as much as in the US). Look at the sums and estimate how much the EU might save in lower oil prices (and note that this is unlikely to happen under your scenario since the US hasn't ratified Kyoto) compared with how much they they will lose in complying with Kyoto. It would not be a rational economic decision in this sense. Try this on for size instead: perhaps they honestly believe in anthropogenic greenhouse. Perhaps they honestly believe that Kyoto, with all its faults, is better than doing nothing. Perhaps they honestly believe that "protecting their own interests" involves mitigating global warming.
What it comes down to is that if you spend enough money, you can get a scientist to say whatever you like - which kind of destroys the credibility of science in general...
It doesn't come down to that at all, except in your mind, because in general it is not true. Do you actually know anything about science? Ever done it yourself? I do and I have, respectively, and this does not accord with my experience.
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.