Slashdot Mirror
Using Barges to Fight Global Warming
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Peter Flynn, Poole Chair in Management for Engineers in the University of Alberta Department of Mechanical Engineering, has developed what he would like to consider a fall back plan to help combat the effects of global warming, in northern Europe. Flynn proposes using 'more than 8,000 barges moving into the northern ocean in the fall, speeding the initial formation of sea ice by pumping a spray of water into the air, and then, once the ice is formed, pumping ocean water on top of it, trapping the salt in the ice and reaching a thickness of seven meters. In the spring, water would continue to be pumped over the ice to melt it, forming a vast amount of cold, salty water that sinks and adds to the down-welling current to re-strengthen it.'"
Whatever the virtues may or may not be in micromanaging an incompletely understood global chaotic system by adding further human input, you all might be interested in hearing it from the horse's mouth. In this radio interview. (scroll down for links) the good doctor makes the point that he is not advocating doing this now, but rather studying the possibility in the case that we find ourselves in an emergency situation where the currents get out of whack and crazy things, like the freezing of the Thames, start happening.
When we're done using barges to fight global warming, maybe we can use canoes to fight leprechauns!
Wouldn't be better to spend this tiny amount of money with measures to prevent and control the emission of CO2 at the atmosphere? This barges things looks like a hack to me... a really expensive hack. Would this have to be done every year? I think it is better to leave this kind of "ultimate" solution to when there is no option at all. Until then, let's try to fight the roots of the problem, not just patch it from the outside and adjourn the disaster for a few years.
I wonder how much the CO2 output of the barges would be? That can't be especially good for the greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile these barges use energy during the process. 8,000 barges is a lot of energy. That energy production is probably going to contribute to global warming again. We desperately need a permanent and viable solution for energy production. It is good to see some emergency plans being formulated but this will only prolong the inevitable.
Narrator: Fortunately, our handsomest politicians came up with a cheap, last-minute way to combat global warming. Ever since 2063 we simply drop a giant ice cube into the ocean every now and then.
Suzie: Just like Daddy puts in his drink every morning. And then he gets mad.
Narrator: Of course, since the greenhouse gases are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time. Thus solving the problem once and for all.
Suzie: But-
Narrator: ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!
Leela: Well, we just need one of those big ice cubes. Someone should call the losers who are supposed to deliver it.
[phone rings]
Hello?
Read Pynchon.
At least they are not planning to use trees to fight global warming.
Or we could let the planet do what it's always done: rise and drop in temperature and water levels. Whatever you may think humans have done to the planet, it's gone through much bigger changes before we were ever here. How about we let nature take its course and we worry about changing ourselves instead of the planet?
Developers: We can use your help.
tugboats
burning fossil fuels?
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
Oh I think I saw this on a movie once. You graft another head onto the original problem body, but in the version I saw it all went horribly wrong and a few innocent bystanders were killed.
This sounds similar to the solution in Futurama episode #57, "Crimes of the Hot" where they used to drop a gigantic ice cube in the ocean. First Episode of Season 5
Why not just leave the refrigerator open? See, Mom was WRONG all those years! If all the kid's left the refrigerator open, it would cool the world! BWAHAHA!
Wait... you mean the world would actually get WARMER? BAH! The thermal engineers are trying to confuse me!
Wouldn't EXPENDING energy simply generate more heat? Even if the result *appears* to be a layer of ice over the oceans, this energy has to go somewhere else. I realize that the Earth isn't a closed system, but that's the problem - we've got energy input and not much energy output. Until we can fix this, any large-scale energy expenditure will NOT have a positive effect w/ regards to combating global warming, right?
(Ok, now some physicist type needs to come along and correct me, but still...)
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
If 8,000 barges work this year, how many will be needed next year, and the year after that? I wonder what sort of mathematical progression is planned.
I'm sure politicans are all following over themselves trying to spend 50billion dollars on this idea. I guess I'll stop building my house up on 10ft stilts .... i'm sure this will stop the massive climate change and prevent ocean level increases.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Eight THOUSAND barges pumping enough water to make a layer seven METERS thick? EACH YEAR.
I'm no scientist, but it seems to me we'd be pumping out some greenhouse gases somewhere in this mix...
Would these be nuclear barges? No greenhouse gases, but instead spent nuclear fuel to contain for a really long time.
They estimate $50 billion USD to do this, but they don't say if that is the ongoing yearly amount.
Maybe easier just to genetically engineer all the plants and animals to deal with the new conditions rather than try to control the ocean currents (and for the humor impaired -- that sentence is meant as a joke).
They're gonna use solar panels. Or maybe penguins in big hampster wheels...
I have freaks! I did something right...
When the bought-off pundits, ideology-addled fanboys, and fossil fuel industry flaks run out of viable talking points in their F.U.D. campaign, the debate over global warming won't be over whether it is happening, but on the most effective and economical ways to slow it down and cope with its effects.
There won't be a one-size-fits-all fix. Conservation and more efficient vehicles will be a big part of it. Environmental remediation projects, like reconstructing coastal wetlands to help them deal with floods and storms, will be another.
Stange notions like seeding the ocean with iron filings, and this oddball idea, are another possibility for the "arsenal" of fixes. I'd definitely put some money into researching them. Figure out the kinks sooner rather than later, so they'll be available if we need them.
How us starving eskimos supposed to plant our wheat in 2009 now? Our agents have been setting charges on volcanoes around the globe over the past few years to warm us up a bit.
This scheme reminds me somewhat of some of the (intentionally) money-wasting schemes of the movie Brewster's millions. Large machines sent thousands and thousands of miles to mechanically move an almost unimaginable ammount of water, along with the fuel needed to do all of this large-scale de-facto terraforming (aquaforming?).
That...or the Futurama episode where it was revealed that global warming had to be fended off with giant ice cubes from Haley's comet every once in a while.
What this scheme ammounts to is a color shift of a rather small portion of the earth's ocean, for a rather small ammount of time, and enormous cost.
You could achieve the same dynamic by:
A) Using some cheaper coloring to semi-permanantly paint large portions of land environments with an already severely limited biological environment, including deserts, rocky areas, upper mountain ranges, near-permafrost (permafrost is already white most of the time), etc. Longer-lasting and cheaper than the ice-cube in the ocean effect. Could be undone with darker color later if needed.
B) Genetically engineer and feed cryophillic bacteria with light pigment in near-arctic ocean areas. Either have it continuously expell bouyant light-color material as part of the life cycle, or else have the body stay boyant and un-edible by further bacteria after death. If this is feasible, and self-sustainable, we'd have a meaningful, if limited engineered biological terraforming. Similarly can be undone with darker color later.
Those are just two quick ideas - I'm sure there's a lot others that would work to do color-based terraforming. Are there any special reasons why this barge idea would... hold water still above such ideas?
As a backup plan, we could take 8,000 jumbo jets and fly between the sun and the earth, thereby casting a shadow. That would promote global cooling as well.
It's cold over here. With higher heating bills this year, I have to conserve. I look forward to all the Global Warming we can get. Bring it on!
1. Stop selective de-forestation of the South American rainforest.
2. Find the fucking Europeans some other place to grow soybeans for their bio-diesel so they don't start de-foresting the Congo.
3. Build nuclear power plants.
4. Build breeder reactors and core re-processing factories so we don't have to bury as much radioactives.
5. Find a fucking use for all the radioactive by-product waste generated from 30 years of unabated plutonium weapon manufacturing. Vitrify it and use the barrel to de-ice sidewalks or something. Sheesh!
6. Use on-site hydrogen production to fuel automobiles.
7. Figure out a superconductor that can withstand 50C temperatures, and lay down an underground electrical grid across the country (be it US or EU or China or Korea or Japan).
8. Home school your children, because urban teachers' unions are fucking KILLING our literacy rate.
9. Buy Danish goods. Most butter cookies, but cheese and booze as well.
10. For the Love of God, please enroll Hillary in some anger management classes. That crying shit is waaaaaaayyyyyy too unbalanced for the nuclear football team.
Like his idea, this one will be shot down for the same reason: It might actually do something about the problem, doesn't funnel money to the climatologists pushing Global Warming as a means of securing ever-more funding, and it offends the the civil religion of environmentalism by allowing Western Civilization to escape suffering (in the form of a stagnant economy die to crushing greenhouse gas taxes) for its "environmental sins."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
...just build a giant shield to block the sun?
Work Safe Porn
unfortunately the little ice this wacko struggles to sustain with all his motorboats may actually inhibit the natural absorption of CO2 into the ocean. ...oh shucks and then there are those damn climate cycles
The climate of Eocene is supposed to have been perfect - the average sea water temperature around Arctic 15deg. Celsius, palm trees growing within polar circle and the tropics not much hotter than today. What's wrong with returning to these conditions? We would need more forests than today perhaps, but it it undoable?
Without taking into account the fuel consumed to actually manufacture said barges...
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
5 Years Later, on Slashdot:
"Due to all the additionnal greenhouse gases created by having 8,000 barges continuously circumventing the oceans, the Alberta professor now suggests to add more barges... to curb the effect on global warming the old ones created."
That's like 4,000,000,000 garden hoses !
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
does not make any sense.
The original paper is unfortunately not available without a subscription, but it has considerably more detail.
The cost breaks down as a capital outley of 45 billion dollars for the barges and equipment; and operating expenses of 1.3 billion dollars per year. The barges would be wind powered for the pumping operations so no substantial CO2 is generated.
8100 barges, with a wind power system, a low volume pump and two high volume pumps per barge. 32 helicopters, 4 harbors, 4 air bases and 1 control center, for the Thunderbirds, I guess.
I pee'ed in a pool last week. I don't know if that helps global warming or hurts it, but I guess if I see one of these barges pull up in my neighbor backyard I will have to appologize to him...
Physics can't be this man's strong point.. okay so I take WATER and spray it into the air to turn it into ICE. The Resulting process does which? oh yes, some heat must be released since we're not using pressure. End result? We have thicker caps and the illusion of cold. That's a good idea for making the Ice Caps thicker but overall doesn't remove any of the "heat" or global warming issues. You have to address the SOURCE of an issue as opposed to the effects to make anything work. Infact it's possible that would have the OPPOSITE effect. Heat and energy is being trapped on our planet. That's the problem right? what does making one selected area colder do to fix anything? I don't get it.
The TV sitcom "Dinosaurs" was such a wonderful show. It was an excellent satire, paralleling the Dinosaur's "modern" world with our own. As soon as I read this article, I immediately thought of the final episode of this sitcom.
In the final episode, a comet is heading towards the planet, and the "We Say So" corporation devises a way of destroying the comet using "modern" technology, only to find that it has a consequence. Each "solution" cause a larger and larger problem, only to be "fixed" with another "solution", causing an ever-growing problem. I forget the entire sequence of events, but in the final stage, they kill all the plant life on the planet. They figure that to bring the plant life back, they need to make it rain. Rain is formed by clouds. Clouds are formed by erupting volcanos. So, naturally, forcing all the volcanos to erupt will cause clouds to form, causing rain to fall and restore the plant life for all the earth. The episode finishes with the corporation detinating bombs inside volcanos, causing all the volcanos to erupt, blackening the sky, causing the start of the ice age.
Words of wisdom from Dinosaur Earl Sinclair: "It's so easy to take advantage of nature because it's always there, and technology is so bright and shiny and new."
Let the Earth take care of nature. We're so focused on manipulating nature for the survival of every single life on Earth, we lose site of the fact that every now and then, nature has to correct our mistakes to restore its own balance, whether in the form of a plague, a change in the weather patterns, or an ice age.
They just put all the robots on these barges, and let them fart in the sun's general direction....
Sure sounds easier than increasing gas mileage and cutting greenhouse emissions. Amazing some of the bone head solutions for avoiding dealing with the real issue. I remember a proposal of digging tunnels in the mountains around LA to blow the smog out. Gee let's spend tens of billions so we don't have to be responsible and cut emissions. When LA actually starting passing laws against polution it got radically better. Then a little thing called the SUV showed up and most of the gains were lost. Back in the late 70s you could hardly see the mountains at all for months at a time. By the early 90s heavy smog days were rare. Ten years later they are common again. We can make a difference it just requires effort and responsibility. People don't want to make sacrifics or accept change. Well things are changing so you better get used to it.
We change our environment to better suit ourselves. This comfy chair I'm sitting on, the lights I'm under, the food I had for lunch, the air in my office, none of it would exist in that state without human touch. Almost everything I interact with on a daily basis is the result of us changing our environment to better suit us. We make small changes and we make large ones.
We will keep doing it because we have an innate desire to make things better for ourselves. And guess what! That is "nature" taking it's course because we are part of nature, not separate from it.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
can someone mod the parent post please? :D
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
If we blew up the Sun, we wouldn't have to worry about Global Warming.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I also notice that the rise in temperature precedes the rise in CO2 for the most part of that graph.
On that chart, the timeline goes right-to-left, with the older record on the right.
Global warming is not all about taking care of 'our earth'. It's about saving our own asses from extinction.
Earth has endured asteroid showers, meteor showers, major volcanic erruptions that produced ice ages and other effects of extreme proportion. Earth will contineu to self-maintain long after the human race died off, or nuked themselves. When a major earth shifting event happens, evolution begins again.
Leave the glabal warming, ozone holes, melting ice alone - It's evident that since we started reducing ozone depleting chemicals, introduced automobile emmission controls, and a bounty of other reversal efforts, that nothing is helping. I strongly feel that we are not causing these things - rather earth is evolving herself, and unfortunately her future plans may or may not include any of the current species. We're beating a dead horse!
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
+50 incoherent stereotype confusion.
Every republican knows that "chicken little liberals" are all athiests.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I agree that limiting CO2 production seems like a better way to go after the root cause. I'd like to begin building enough nuclear fusion power plants in the USA to eliminate our reliance on burning fossil fuels, including coal, for the generation of electricity. Nuclear fusion does not emit CO2.
I wonder what all those people 20 years ago who said "global warming is going to become a major hurdle which could destroy the planet, and cost hundreds of billions (if not more by orders of magnitude) to the world economy" are thinking now? You know those people, the ones formerly known as "tree huggers", "hippies", and "granola heads". Ok, so hippies are still alive and well (I live near Boulder, trust me, I know)... But it's funny how nobody has acknowledged the "told ya so" factor. Of course anyone that could probably owns oil stock anyway.
... well, water. I'd think that if the atmosphere could support freezing more of it, it would be happening already. So really I just see this system as a patch to a deeper flaw, that is going to cycle itself to an uncontrollable (read: violently self-correcting) state. Hopefully I'm still alive to see it, cause it's gonna be one hell of a show!
I still don't buy that this will work though (and no I didn't RTFA). A lot of water vapor is present in the atmosphere, particularly over large bodies of
Just stick a fricken "LASER" on the moon!
Boil the oceans until human life ceases to exist, then allow the natural order to return. Agent Smith was right.
There have been many heating and cooling periods over the years. Thinking that human intervention can either promote or undermine global warming is somewhat arrogant.
No Sigs!
> God exists so we can't destroy the earth
I wish I could sit down with a 40oz with you (or whatever drug makes me credible in your mind) and tell you just how wierd, irrelevant, and completely moot a statement like that is.
Any drug, really, I like alot of them.
"Old man yells at systemd"
No no no, God only lets us destroy the Earth to test our faith.
How much new Greenhouse will burning all the fuel to run that plan create?
Of course the operation could be fueled with nonemissions energy sources. But with a contingency plan like that, the petrofuel industry will have even less inhibition in pumping emissions into the Greenhouse.
Any Greenhouse plan has to start by changing the system to reduce its emissivity. The best way to reduce the Greenhouse, and its unpredictable chaotic feedbacks, is to stop building it.
--
make install -not war
I have an even better idea. Why don't we use all of the extra CO2 in our atomosphere to make dry ice? Everyone knows that dry ice is way better than water ice at cooling things down, so it will be much better for cooling the planet down. We can even dump it in the ocean to replace the melting polar ice caps!
I always thought the most effective last ditch response was dumping iron in the ocean.
v iew.php
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/oceangard/over
-ccl
I was going to post some smart-ass/funny comment along the lines of...
go grab ebarge.com while its still available...
Then I checked and well... http://www.ebarge.com/
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
And how much CO2 would that pump into the air?
If "BIG IF" a housing/large apartment/buildings are required to install sabatier conversion unit and solar power unit? The energy input (+400C and some pressure) with CO2 and 4H2 intake (even at low efficiency), output would be methane, a source of energy which can heat up the house/building and excess production can feed into molten-carbonate fuel cell plants through existing gas pipe.
u elcells/fc_types.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_process
"Circle of life, Simba, Circle of life."
When the methane is collected and used where molten-carbonate fuel cells are used to further absorb CO2 and use methane as anode gas, it can be used to produce electricity at ~80% efficiency (at the most). Then the circle of life breaks for CO2 with energy conversion gain with less CO2 output as byproduct.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/f
Of course, there are problems with MCFC due to high temperature, but this can be easily overcome. I mean, it can't be harder than overcoming FUSION's crazy amount of heat.
Yeah... but I know... I could be talking about of my ass.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Too little is understood to be able to determine what the right thing to do is anyway, at least by enough people who will all agree at the same time. 8000 barges is a story for sci-fi dreamers. Reality is run by psychopaths, religious nut-jobs, and alien free-range farmers with dinner napkins tucked under their chins eagerly awaiting the slaughter.
Systems which do not respect life and Mother Earth, are doomed to fall hard. The U.S. is sinking fast and technology is not going to save us. Guaranteed. --Not because we aren't capable of thinking up good ideas, but because those who are in control are quite pleased with the direction of things. And the human elite who have a clue, (bastards), have chosen to ditch out on the rest of us and hide underground while the planet burns/freezes/gets hammered with comets. So 8000 Barges? Yeah. Dream on.
Mother Earth is pushing the re-set button. Get comfy with that idea.
-FL
No one is disputing that there is global warming. The dispute is whether it's man-made or natural.
There's been global warming since the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago.
No mentions of Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Fifty Degrees Below so far? None at all??
Geeze! And you guys call yourself geeks?
According to a report on the projected annual costs of the Kyoto treaty to the United States, issued by the federal Energy Information Agency in October 1998, "The total cost to the economy can be estimated as the loss in actual GDP (the loss in potential GDP plus the macroeconomic adjustment cost) plus the purchase of international permits ... Total costs range from an annual average level for the period 2008 to 2012 of $77 billion to $338 billion 1992 dollars depending on the carbon reduction case and how funds are recycled back to the economy."
BTW, Kyoto is acknowledged even by its defenders as a mere regulatory icebreaker with little direct impact, intended to open a path for far harsher protocols to follow. A modern civilised economy is very energy-hungry, and strangling the main source of energy would brake the economy hard. That has real costs, both in money and in human suffering.
In other words, faced with those sorts of costs, $50bn starts to look like pocket change.
Just from an engineering perspective, surely you can see how a direct attack on the problem makes more sense? It's like the difference between dealing with a slow-dripping spigot that has flooded your floor by stopping the leak and letting the floor dry in its own time (Kyoto) versus mopping the mess up first (climate engineering).
If you actually read the article he talks about how the currents MAY be weakening. Either you know or you don't. "The melting of fresh water ice due to global warming can reduce the flow of the down-welling current, and a study published recently in the journal Nature by researchers at the University of Southhampton in England reported evidence of weakening down-welling currents." How do they know its from global warming and what is this evidence that theses researchers have? If they are simulations then that is no evidence since simulations are just predictions of what might happen. There is no proof to them. "The estimated cost is about $50 billion." If you are so concerned about this "global warming" that isn't here yet and probably will never be since there is no evidence that has yet to come out to prove that it even exists why not use this money you want to spend to "quick fix" a problem for something else. If it does exist then why not work on reducing CO2 levels from factories NOW instead of waiting for something to happen? Why not even try to strive to get rid of emissions from factories all together, have no waste at all (it is possible).
Nova Express, you say that enviromentalism is a religon in a way, you could think of them as the anit-Christs...In revalation the devil is thrown into the lake of sulfur/fire, depends on what version you read. If we try to stop the alleged global warming (it will take more than our lifetime to prove global warming as a real problem or just a small issue) then we also try to help the devil...ok thats more or less a joke so no one take it seriously, although I know some fanaticle /.er will end up reading the first half but not this disclaimer.
:) ) comes from snow run off in the mountains, trees take some of this water on the way down and when they don't getenough they dry out along with the rest of the plant life causeing some nice dry problems like higher fire risks.
Also people need to really look at the de-forestation thing from a wider standpoint, we actually have more forest in America than we did in the 1800's and nature is fighting back with fires used to control the size of some of these fires. The thing is trees require water, so do we. In colorado our water (the bestbecause we use it first
I say we need moderation, and let nature take its course, lets just hope Bush's plan to have hydrogen powered vehicles goes through, just call a war on enviroment...We all know his plan to cut out forgien oil just means more money in his pocket.
I'm sure we're all delighted that you enjoy your 40oz variety of drugs (what do you get in 40oz anyway?) You didn't argue anything coherent about why the existance of God would not deter the destruction of the earth. Here's one for you: God will destroy the earth when he's good and ready, not a moment sooner.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Meanwhile 8000 diesel ship engines pour pollutants and greenhouse gases into the environment at twice the rate of benefit created by the artificial creation and manipulation of sea ice.
Ya gotta think these things through professor...
There is no such thing as Global Warming if anybody would bother to look at the data you would see that the average temperature change around the globe is less then ±1.
"science blog" is using a direct copy and paste from eureka alert, without even a courtesy copyright attribution. The release is in reference to a paper published two years ago, in a pay per view journal. The author is heavily involved with both greenhouse gas control, *and* the canadian energy industry. The only credible way to build the sea ice on top of sea ice to make it thick enough to be of any value and to cover that HUGE area using pumps on 8000 barges is to BURN OIL. HUGE TANKERLOAD MEGA GALLON quantities of it.
Sort of almost defeats the purpose, doesn't it? And why is this re-released after two years?
My opinion, folks in europe and the north east US better get their act together and learn to build structures like the superinsulated examples used in northern sweden, etc and learn to grow crops in insulated greenhouses. Do it now why it is still cheap to do it. The vast majority of structures standing now in those areas are so pitifully insulated it should be embarrassing to the nations contractors and building permit issuers and mortgage lenders.
The best way to help mitigate any human cause for global warming is not to produce more energy,we don't really need it right now IF we instead use what we have more wisely, and that starts with two simple concepts, better insulation (by a factor of approx 5) and better mileage vehicles (by a factor of approx 3). Both are quite doable using simple technology that exists today. Neither is very sexy though,and you don't get grants to deploy or research what has already been developed and works well. You'd have to go get a real job someplace. So, we have mr. hydrogen fuel cell schemes and 8,000 barge "research".
who profits, follow the money
I bet if we got all our pollution devices together in one place...
I'm incredibly fond of that idea too! Just let me light the strip of magnesium will ya? WoooHooooooo! ;-)
It doesn't emit anything, including energy, yet.
I'll see your five year old national geographic fluff piece, and raise you a two year old government study.
Now, considering that fossil fuels contribute roughly 4-5 billion tons of C to the atmosphere annually, and we've got about 100 years of fossil fuels left... How in the hell is this not a perfect solution? Oh yeah, that's right... too many global warming chicken littles out there are going to have egg on their face if atmospheric C is reduced to pre-industrial levels and global temps are still rising thanks to the simple fact that the sun is getting hotter. We wouldn't want to actually test that "greenhouse gases cause global warming" theory, now would we? Better just stick to those computer models...
Oh no! I'm challenging global warming rhetoric with scientific studies! Damn!! There goes my Karma! *sniff* Goodbye sweet Karma <sarcasm />
"O king," they cried, "there never has been anyone as mighty as you, and there never be anyone so great, ever again!" "And you say all things obey me?" Canute asked. "Absolutely!" they said. "The world bows before you, and gives you honor." "I see," the king answered. "In that case, bring me my chair, and we will go down to the water." "At once, your majesty!" They scrambled to carry his royal chair over the sands. "Bring it closer to the sea," Canute called. "Put it right here, right at the water's edge." He sat down and surveyed the ocean before him. "I notice the tide is coming in. Do you think it will stop if I give the command?" His officers were puzzled, but they did not dare say no. "Give the order, O great king, and it will obey," one of then assured him. "Very well. Sea," cried Canute, "I command you to come no further! Waves, stop your rolling!. Surf, stop your pounding! Do not dare touch my feet!" He waited a moment, quietly, and a tiny wave rushed up the sand and lapped at his feet. "How dare you!" Canute shouted. "Ocean, turn back now! I have ordered you to retreat before me, and now you must obey! Go back!" And in answer another wave swept forward and curled around the king's feet. The tide came in, just as it always did. The water rose higher and higher. It came up around the king's chair, and wet not only his feet, but also his robe. His officers stood before him, alarmed, and wondering whether he was not mad. "Well, my friends," Canute said, "it seems I do not have quite so much power as you would have me believe. Perhaps you have learned something today. Perhaps now you will remember there is only one King who is all-powerful, and it is he who rules the sea, and holds the ocean in the hollow of his hand. I suggest you reserve your praises for him." The royal officers and courtiers hung their heads and looked foolish. And some say Canute took off his crown soon afterward, and never wore it again.
Whilst this osund intteresting and creative I also find it a very poorly thought out plan without enough research. Frankly it sounds a mighty ambitious and without any clear insight into the side-effects in detail. 8000 barges would be alot and indeed woul dpotentialy have a measurable impact in respect of potentialy forming ice sooner in the area there working in, BUT thats 8000 barges using other resources that will have to be balanced out somewere else, albeit in usual human vanity form of we see no problem here and over there is out of sight.
If you effect and change A then although you cannot see Z it is by definition also effected along the line. Its this type of mentality that causes these problem in the first place.
Why not force all cars to have some form of air filter fitted to the radiator air intake, whilst not doing huge amounts on a singular basis as a whole would add up to alot of crap taken out of the air without adding anything to what is in a car already. Given they happily pump out crap why not suck up crap as well. But alas that has no direct visable impact and as such no glory and wont happen with the mentality of problem fixing we endure today.
Yeah... leave it to Edmonton to want to make the world suffer more cold - just like they do.
I guess it's an Alberta thing. Like beef, oil, and prosperity cheques. Ha! Take that Toronto!
*sniff* *blink* WHOA
.. *sniff* WOW
that is
WHOA vlad
what on earth did you eat????
We are not killing the planet, :-)
;-)
Just ourselves, and taking most the mammals with us.
It's Happened Before...
And if we're not smart it will happen again.
God's masterplan no doudt has something lined up if we don't keep our side of the bargain. or there is no god it all happened by chance and there is still something waiting to take our place, if we don't wise up.
So your right belive system is no reason not to be doing something.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
Global warming looks just like y2k was for programmers - scary stories, inflated budjets. And noone ever apologised for all the hype. I bet in 100 years people won't hear the names of anti-GW proponents, and they'll all enjoy (posthumous) dignity they don't deserve.
I have no problems with this, as soon as you can give me some assurance we don't flip things the other way and start our own ice age.
But we better get a move on. Manmade problem or overheating sun, it won't matter much if we lose 100 miles of coastland to rising ocean levels...
Yes it does. Specifically, it releases a slightly higher than background radiation level amount of neutrons. And then only when you pour more energy into it than is released by it...
It's truly amazing to me how many people's answer to the fact that we might get wiped out by global warming is "well, maybe it's just our time to go" or "we're a pox on the planet anyway" or any number of other things.
Some even go so far as to suggest we should voluntarily die out.
1) Why is the planet more important than its only known sentient, sapient species? Who is around to make judgements on the value of things if not the very creatures these people propose to eliminate?
2) Why are they so sure we are incapable of evolution? Look at the radical changes we've undergone as a species just in the last 200 years. There is every reason to believe we will become more aware of ourselves and better-equipped to make our presence on the planet more and more positive as time goes on.
3) Is the entire human body of knowledge, art, and culture worth so little that they'd be willing to throw away any future chance of development of those forever?
There are few things that make me angry on the internets. This is one of them, for some reason. Silly, but true.
+++ATH0
Maybe not to you, but my property in the desert is going to be worth a lot more once the ocean gets closer! And yes, I drive TWO SUVs.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
I honestly believe that this could not possibly work, and if anything, would speed up global warming.
In a closed system, it would not be possible to make it colder. You see, the water might form into ice in the air, but the ocean itself would stay warmer because the air is freezing the spray when it would otherwise freeze the ocean.
The boats, containg a stored fuel, would produce heat from the stored fuel, and would be adding to the "closed system" and would make the area warmer. This method just would not work and would be a waste of money.
The only thing that would happen is the slowing of water mixing in with slightly warmer water from the south, which would probably have a negligible impact on everything. If anything, it would make it warmer in the populated world, which is no better than being warmer anywhere else.
This is crackpot science.
I think the best way to combat global warming is to alter the atmospheric layers or distance the earth from the sun. In other words, fix the atmosphere.
That is, if the barges were solar powered. Imagine a huge fleet of solar powered barges assembling up there in arctica, from space it would look like a huge insect roaming the planet.
Oh no! I'm challenging global warming rhetoric with scientific studies! Damn!! There goes my Karma! *sniff* Goodbye sweet Karma
You weild "scientific studies" with all the deftness that a small fingerless child weilds a TV remote control.
The study is an interesting possibility. However, this is A: one study, not multiple, based upon B: data that only showed up after being "corrected for errors," and C: wouldn't have a climate changing effect unless it had been going on for a lot longer than we have records of. It is an interesting possibility deserving of study, but it's certainly not enough evidence to declare something fact.
A true test of a scientific theory is its ability to predict things. Global Warming was predicted based upon greenhouse gas theories and models long before we detected it. That's pretty heavy evidence that at least one cause of global warming is the amount of CO2 and other gasses that are released when we burn gasoline.
The ______ Agenda
would it not be easier to put this $50billion into a political campaign to bring some conservationalist dudes into power,
:)]
who in turn can tax gasoline out of existence
and pump that tax money into subsidising greener vehicles
or put this money into fusion research! how about fusion powered air conditioners
to cool the earth? [doesnt sound as far fethched as 8000barges either
i can see an article on slashdot circa 2020 "some rufus wants to terrafuse our planet!"
1.) It takes energy to get the barges into position.
2.) It takes energy to pump water.
3.) The barges would be reflecting or absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be absorbed by the sea, and used by gazillions of planktons and other micro-organisms in the food chain.
4.) It's stupid.
enough said
This kind of large-scale
And on solar radiation increases:
Oh, and as far as "solar forcing" goes, you may wish to have a look at what RealClimate have to say. To sum up, there's very little good historical data on the topic, which makes it an easy copout for people seeking alternative explanations for warming.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
SUPERMAn had in the artic to manipulate the radiation ... and Im sto... (NEE) (NEE) you must bring a shrubbery.L!T bItch>>> /. SUNDAY drivers out there! Scsi ride take it easy!@@#$$%^^&&*(()_ZX>\\\\\\derez crew
What up
Last POST! NEE NEE
I tip toe like rats on vouge runnways.
Manmade problem or overheating sun, it won't matter much if we lose 100 miles of coastland to rising ocean levels
I think this is a very good point , as is the fact of our sun getting hotter year after year .
Their are plenty of other reasons to stop burning fossil fuels, like the poisons that enter
our air, water, and soil .
Also it has been found that underwater volcanic activity is on the rise as well .
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/1904.asp
Something to consider indeed .
Major geological shifts and release of heat .
I am not saying this to nullify the negative aspects of human vehicles, but it does make one
wonder how rapid the climate shift is about to be .
I think 2012 will interesting .
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I should start buying up real estate in the canadian tundra, eh?
******************
Here is an idea, Fix what's f*cking it up in the first place...
it's so STUPID how we allways just try to fix the problem by putting a bandaid on the symptoms,
but do not address the real source of the issues.
I am ashamed of how short sighted we all are. Nobody considers the consiquences of our actions... what it will do for the future..... just let someone else deal with it then.
We keep it up, it'll be too late, and the dammage will be irreversable.
P.S. This applies to many situations.... not just global warming.
In 1976, Stephen Schneider, then a leading proponent of the "Global Cooling" scare which was then the scientific consensus, published a book called "The Genesis Strategy" in which he advocated spraying black carbon soot on to the then expanding Arctic ice sheet in order to encourage it to melt, and thus forestall catastrophic global cooling which would slow down the Gulf Stream, increase the deserts, cause famine etc.
Now 30 years later we want to encourage the ice sheet to grow with yet another crackpot scheme to forestall catastrophic global warming which will slow down the Gulf Stream, increase the deserts, cause famine etc.
The key point being of course, the assumption that the Earth's climate system is in some unstable equilibrium, where any slight change (which of course must be man-made, the Earth's climate naturaly being completely stable) will cause a catastrophic something-or-other (ie we have reached a "tipping point", leading to massive calls for research money to use computers to find out how bad it'll get if current trends continue.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
money is the biggest, most sociably acceptable addiction on the planet because it is needed to cause chain reactions good or bad (mostly bad) for example the industries who make the most money pollute the most.
We have the technology now.. solar power... i know someone who runs his entire house off of 8 solar panels and deepcycle batteries that can be reconditioned after 5 or so years. the most logical direction and solution imo (which i also support) for this planet to head towards is to go back to using hemp for pretty much EVERYTHING as it was 10,000 years ago it grows way faster AND denser then forests, the oils can be used as a fuel,soap,food,paper,cloths and over 5000 other uses.. hemp is a natural pesticide so it can be grown pretty much anywhere. for clothing, it isnt made from cotton from a field drenched in pesticides then bought by you, the consumer, and slap it your back without knowing. that says it all right there.. "with out knowing" or wanting to?
hemp plastics can be 10x stronger then steel and obviously.. it wont rust.. it has a time capability to it, meaning, say you need to mass produce a hemp water bottle for 24 packs or what have you.. the hemp plastic can be timed to lose its physical properties in be it 6 months a year 10 years? cut out the middle man, recycling plants, which do contribute to global warming.. petro plastics today just cant offer what hemp can...
the thing is.. more people need to turn off their tv and be educated about hemp.. we need hemp growers... imagine how many jobs it would create around the world.
instead of harvesting oil, cotton and precious oxygen providing trees.. ..the need to greed multi trillion dollar corporations worst nightmare...
few links to chew http://www.hemphasis.com/hempseed.htm http://torontohemp.com/hempuses.htm hempcar.org
So, I take it that you also think that it takes more energy to pump oil out of the ground than the oil pumped out of the ground can produce?
Not yet, but there will come a day. That's what peak oil is all about.
What, both at the same time?
And that's (cynicism hat on) what's wrong with it. You're only creating jobs for hard hat workers. To get any leverage behind a solution, you need something that costs an enormous amount and creates lots of white middle class jobs, preferably in government.
Pining for the fjords
No, only when I really feel like destroying the environment. One in each country.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
needed to haul enough fresh water to cover the arctic area, atomize it all into the air and then pump half an ocean of water up on top of the ice thus formed will be supplied from the petroleum reserves in the researcher's province of Alberta.
The addition of CO2 to artic air masses entailed in such an operation would have to work against the desired effect of mimicing the condtions in the arctic before we had global warming.
take all this as only an indication of how desperate we are.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
This is an actual idea floating around out there. Engineer special plants that absorb as much C02 as possible rather than just what they need for C02.
I'm not a biologist or geneticist, so don't ask me how the specifics of this would work or how easy this would be to achieve.
Those of us that live in northern latitudes WANT global warming You Insensitive Clod!
Oh yeah, that's right... too many global warming chicken littles out there are going to have egg on their face if atmospheric C is reduced to pre-industrial levels and global temps are still rising thanks to the simple fact that the sun is getting hotter.
And the sun's temperature has absolutely NOTHING to do with heating the earth. Throw water outside of the space station, and it will freeze pretty darn quickly.
Also, our sun isn't heating up, its cooling down. It happens to all stars as they are. If it were heating up, it'd be looking more blue than red.
A lot of coal fields in the USA contain coal fire areas. The federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) manages a data base (Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System, AMLIS) that registered 150 fires in the year 1999. Coal fires are not only in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virgina east of the Appalachian coal field, but also Colorado in the Rocky Mountains.
In Pennsylvania 45 coal fires exist. One of them is the Centralia pit fire, located in the anthracite coal region in Columbia County. It can be assumed that the seam ignited when trash was burned in an old open pit. The fire in the open pit caught an exposed vein of coal seam on fire. Since 1962 a subsurface fire spreads under the town. A series of measures were implemented to stop the coal fire but in the end the town had to be evacuated because of land-subsidence, air pollution and water contamination.
I would vehemently oppose ANY attempt by humans to control our weather! We don't need some half-assed scheme to try and make our weather more temperate or cooler in order to fight something we don't quite understand fully yet.
Any attempt to try and purposely affect weather on a global scale will result in more devastation then the supposed effects of global warming.
Something I do truly believe in is that there is statistical evidence that suggests we are in a NATURAL warming trend. Ice data collected in the Arctic and Antarctic suggest that weather patterns are cyclical, and we are about due for a natural warming of global temperatures.
I am sure that our continued dependence on pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere isn't helping situations, and I can see highly localized warming trends in major urban centers ( big cities are always a few degrees warmer because of concentrations of smog and just radiant energy from buildings and cars), but this doesn't mean the whole earth is warming up because of greenhouse gasses.
We really don't understand what is happening, and I think it is just too alarmist to believe we can affect weather on a global scale. Its almost too arrogant to believe we can have that kind of effect on Mother Nature.
But before we attempt to correct what many consider a problem we have caused, we should understand how the earth is ACTUALLY responding to the warming trend. I have read that the Earth has recovered from warming trends in the past, by natural means.
We don't need humans to interfere with trying to purposely affect weather. I think that kind of arrogance will lead to devastation like we have never seen, throwing the natural balance of weather out of order and perhaps interrupting some natural process to fight the global warming trend.
In the end, if you truly believe that humans are causing global warming, then protest your governments insistent dependence on petroleum. Fight for greener cars and alternative fuels. Get your government to support Kyoto and stop using coal or natural gas for energy. Most governments are being lazy because it is either too costly to change or too much effort requires to change. But please don't support any attempt by a government or scientific organization to CHANGE global weather patterns on PURPOSE. No one person or group should be arrogant or self righteous enough to affect global weather on behalf of the world, especially when there is a chance that this warming trend in natural and the Earth may have its own built-in defence mechanism.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I understand that at this time, it's more of a "could we do this if we had to, and what would we need in order to do it?" than a "let's do it now!" thing. However, I hope that if there ever is a need to do something like this, that they look into the advantages of using Pykrete strategically. The properties of Pykrete are frequently exaggerated, but it is provably stronger and more resistant to melting than regular ice, which could be valuable.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
Something I do truly believe in is that there is statistical evidence that suggests we are in a NATURAL warming trend. Ice data collected in the Arctic and Antarctic suggest that weather patterns are cyclical, and we are about due for a natural warming of global temperatures.
Yes, they're cyclical, but the last 4 cycles have shown long periods of cold with short peaks at or above the current temperatures. These peaks are about 10,000 years long. The last one started over 10,000 years ago.
The data is very noisy, and you can't say much with certainly, but only the most hopeful of observers could look at it and argue that the evidence suggests we're due for a warmer period... on the contrary, we're due for an ice age.
The quoted text is by Michael Crichton, not Gregory Benford. Can you explain what relevance Crichton's comments have to Benford's scheme?
1. Waste more energy and releasing more gases, if you believe this 'theory'
2. Make me a big snow cone please.
Just what we need to do to stop global warming...interfere with the environment. It's done so much good thus so far.
There are two "types" of clouds when it comes to Global temperature. There are "low clouds" and "high clouds". It's the high clouds that insulates this planet - and traps the heat coming off this planet (from it's core) - and causes this planet to become warmer (known as Global warming).
The vapour released from jet aitcraft is the prime cause of "high clouds" - research shows.
It sounds plausible, for sure... we just may be able design our way out of this predicament.
However, I wonder how much artificial freezing potential it will take to offset the smelting and welding and positioning and operation of 8000 "barges?"
A "zero" ? More illiterates acting as Slashot moderators. The illiterates can go to:
ahref=http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/06 0124_earth_albedo.htmlrel=url2html-15887http://www .livescience.com/forcesofnature/060124_earth_albed o.html>
and educate themselves.
Here's the URL - that Jets causing Global Warming.
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060124_e arth_albedo.html/
Many enviornmental freaks don't understand this simple fact, but it is true.
I love the Earth and I'd like to see it taken care of- but the Earth has never been and never will be in 'balance.' It's a lie. You may dream about a day when all the oil is used up and we are driving our water-propelled cars that exhaust cotton candy. But it will never be that nice.
Someday technology will get us to the point where our impact on this planet is a fraction of what it is today. And while it may be true that people will STILL complain that we need to ease up, and not wear hard-toed boots because they leave imprints along the ground, we will find that Earth will still be here.
Of course, due to natural occurances it may be a degree or so warmer... or colder... it depends.
-White asphalt for roads.
Right now a whole lot of land is pitch black, soaking tonnes of rays. The stuff gets so hot that you can't walk on it! if they were made lighter in colour less heat would be stored in the asphalt. White tires might be needed too to prevent the roads from going dark.
-White roof shingle.
This is a no-brainer. They are already being produced. They reduce cooling requirements during the summer. All the lasy-ass politicians need to do is tax the black (and dark colour) shingles and joe consumer will instinctively buy the cheaper white shingles.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Puzzling - that I keep posting URL for research - that shows jets causing global warming - but somehow a space is put into the word "earth" in the correct URL. Amazing isn't it. Censorship? Zombies!?
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060124_e arth_albedo.html
Frankly that sounds insignificant to me.
Not far from where I type, the Great Centralia Coal Fire has been burning out of control since 1962 - despite all attempts to put it out. If the USA can't do it, why should you think China can?
OK, I'm not sure how air traffic contributes to global warming, but the week following 911 the daily temperature range (low to high) increased a couple of degrees (documented by NASA) and we had really really clear skys (observed by many people). Planes do have a significant effect on cloud cover with measurable global consequences.
Although on a slightly smaller scale, your breathing also contributes to global warming. The earth is a much bigger and more stable system than people tend to give it credit for. Eight thousand barges is really not a lot of energy when we are talking on these scales. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to measure this kind of stuff relative to the output of a volcano. In that measurement system I would be suprised if 8,000 barges is more than 1/4 vu (volcanic unit).
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
I first heard about this on two-hour special on either the History Channel or the Discovery Channel. The program is called "Big Chill: The Little Ice Age" and is a great watch. I highly recommend it. The program will help give anyone who doesn't have much of a grounding in climatology (I count myself in that crowd) something to think about when everyone yells that our current change in climate is a human-caused catastrophy.
To sum it up, they site empirical evidence showing how Europe was once much warmer, even a little warmer than it is today, then suddenly got very cold. The causes of this climate change are unknown, but as this occured before the industrial revolution, are considered to be some natural phenomina.
Highlights from the program:
- Thames river freezes year after year after year
- Cold weather brings famine to people unable or unwilling to change their lifestyles
- Cold weather influences politics and leads to war
- Cold weather brings about the downfall of the once might Vikings
- Year without a summer, snow falls in July in America and Europe
- Eskimos sail as far south as Scotland!
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Maybe I've been playing too much Alpha Centauri over the years, but can't we just launch the Solar Shade? And then vote every 20 years whether to increase it or decrease it?
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA Thats great! I love how you completely miss the idea of thermal transfer, and the DECADES of work making equipment function with hundreds of degrees difference between tempatures in light and in shade.
Solar output has fluctuated by around 1% of its total energy. The proposed climate change mechanisms aren't due to the solar output itself but on cloud and ozone effects greatly magnifying any changes. In fact, the recent study about a warming sun led by Solanki is based on the frequency of sunspots, which have been relatively constant in the last 20 years while Earth's temperatures rose dramatically.
It's silly to pretend that it has nothing to do with CO2, when CO2 is an easily demonstratable greenhouse gas and vostok cores show us having among the highest CO2 levels in the last several hundred thousand years.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
www.earth.com www.new_earth.com
This is a no-brainer. They are already being produced. They reduce cooling requirements during the summer. All the lasy-ass politicians need to do is tax the black (and dark colour) shingles and joe consumer will instinctively buy the cheaper white shingles.
Sounds like a clear-cut case of color discrimination to me. Are you saying that you think blacks in this country should be taxed at a higher rate? That's the sort of thing that causes riots, you know...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
According to Wikipedia, Stepehn Schneider said this in 1971, not 1976. The 1976 paper was a retraction of this.
...it insists on maintaining the shock effect of the dramatic...rather than the reality of the discipline: we just don't know enough to chose definitely at this stage whether we are in for warming or cooling- or when.
Personally I remember quite clearly that the popular consensus was for the world to heat up, though usually the cause was not CO2 but particulates and water vapor condensing. This was highly influenced by the Venus probes in the 1960's that revealed just how hot the surface of Venus was, caused by the greenhouse effect. I vaguely remember a few people claiming that it would get colder, but that was considered the fringe theories (most of the quotes supposedly trying to prove "global cooling" being popular are quoting these articles that were precisely designed to counter popular belief. The biggest of these was the "nuclear winter" scenarios of around 1979, which I remember being attacked by the right because they disagreed with the "everybody knows it will make the world warmer", and defended as it being a short-term effect verses the longer term pollution effects. If "global cooling" was every a popular theory it was before 1960, I have certainly seen popular sci-fi from that period that worried about the return of the ice age and how we would fight it.
Just having lived that time and been exposed to popular beliefs (taught by liberal teachers and popular press) I have to challenge any claim that there has been a change in consensus. I very much remember it being claimed that it would be warmer, and that the few who challenged this were considered fringe.
Quote from Wikipedia:
In 1971 Schneider was second author on a Science paper with S. I. Rasool titled "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate" (Science 173, 138-141). This paper used a 1-d radiative climate model to examine the competing effects of cooling from aerosols and warming from CO2. The paper concluded:
However, it is projected that man's potential to pollute will increase 6 to 8-fold in the next 50 years. If this increased rate of injection... should raise the present background opacity by a factor of 4, our calculations suggest a decrease in global temperature by as much as 3.5 C. Such a large decrease in the average temperature of Earth, sustained over a period of few years, is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age. However, by that time, nuclear power may have largely replaced fossil fuels as a means of energy production.
Carbon dioxide was predicted to have only a minor role. However, the model was very simple and the calculation of the CO2 effect was incorrect by a factor of about three--a fact soon recognised.
In 1976 Schneider wrote The Genesis Strategy: Climate and Global Survival in which he said:
One form of such pollution that affects the entire atmosphere is the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas.... Human activities have already raised the CO2 content in the atmosphere by 10 percent and are estimated to raise it some 25 percent by the year 2000. In later chapters, I will show how this increase could lead to a 1 Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) average warming of the earth's surface... Another form of atmospheric pollution results from... atmospheric aerosols... there is some evidence that atmospheric aerosols may have already affected the climate. A consensus among scientists today would hold that a global increase in atmospheric aerosols would probably result in a cooling of the climate; however, a smaller but growing fraction of the current evidence suggests that it may have a warming effect.
In 1977 Schneider criticized a popular science book (The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age) that predicted an imminent Ice Age, writing in Nature:
Though you might not know it from reading Slashdot...
It is, next to the power of the Force.
C02 levels have never been higher
LOL. C02 levels have been way higher
There's one in western Colorado that's been burning for something like 90 years. Apparently this is a pretty common problem.
This guy finishes with the same mod score as my original post? Yeah, that's some mighty fine groupthink there slashbots.
Yeah? And Iron Sulfate is dirt cheap. Fix it!
A: Apple does multiple benchmarks on PPC processors showing them to be "twice as fast as Intel", does that make them more accurate? That sounds a lot like "repeat it often enough and it becomes true" to me. Besides, there are have been multiple studies done on this. B: The computer models you rely upon as a proponent of Global Warming Theory rely upon error correction too. So what? Now error correction is not good enough? C: Oh, so measurably cutting CO2 concentrations would have no measurable effect in the short term? I rest my case.
A true test of a scientific theory is its ability to predict things.
No, as any ID debater here will tell ya, a true test of a scientific theory is it's ability to withstand scrutiny and be falsifiable. Here ya go, falsify away for less than the price of an Iraq war.
Global Warming was predicted based upon greenhouse gas theories and models long before we detected it. That's pretty heavy evidence that at least one cause of global warming is the amount of CO2 and other gasses that are released when we burn gasoline
Well imagine that. The graph from my space.com link says the temp anomaly first jumped up above 0 in the past 300 years around 1925. Are you saying computer models were predicting this change back in 1915? Or are you saying the industrial revolution didn't start until 1970 when the anomaly crossed back up and over the zero marker again? Let's have a look at your graph and debate that maybe... Oh, wait, you don't have a graph, or measurements, or anything but the assertion that everyone believes it and there's some magic computer model somewhere that "proves" it.
Small fingerless child my ass.
Anyway. . .
I think, you are just throwing words around without knowing its meaning or fully examining what you are saying.
This is not so. I have a very clear idea about how my thinking works. Rather it seems that we are tripping up on differing definitions of common words.
Everything is not energy. Your definition "physical expression of living energy" is just the proof that you are just contradicting yourself. If energy is "alive," there would be no need or way to express itself physically.
Everything IS energy, actually. Matter subdivided into its tiniest components bears little resemblance to anything we might call, "solid". The smallest parts are theorized by some physicists as being tiny strings of standing energetic wave-forms. Energy. Nothing more.
When I say, "physical expression of living energy" I use the word "physical" to mean the way we percieve the universe, as being filled with solid stuff. --This doesn't change the fact that all that "solid" stuff is really just space made up of tiny wave-forms.
For "energy" is to live its existence as a life, expression can only be mere description of result that its metaphysical transition take place where it can never be created nor destroyed.
I'm afraid I got lost trying to read that, but it sounds intriguing. Can you try explaining yourself again?
That's a mouth full. For a stone to have an awareness, "it" first must know what "it" is. To "know" what "it" is, it also must have an ability to reflect itself and others' existence in comparison. Stones carries properties, not awareness.
This is only true from your perspective. The stones might argue differently. A being which has awareness does not automatically mean it will be recognizable to you. Stones are not likely able to percieve your awareness, but you are alive nonetheless.
I study science, not Scientology... you must understand. You can call it "programming" or whatever.
Scientology is a dangerous cult. The science you study is similar in that it limits by design. True science does not make so many assumptions!
Mother Earth is not a being. [. .
You didn't understand this part of my last post. I'll try to explain once again. --The Earth is a "Being" in that it exists. It floats there, being the Earth. I'm using the root, "To Be", and from that, the Earth is an instance of something which can Be. Thus, it is a Being. Get it?
Now, because Everything is Energy, the Earth is also Energy.
Is Energy aware?
According to all that I have learned and experienced, I have come to think that we are all interconnected pieces of thought energy. --That all thoughts are energy, and all energy are thoughts. Thus, all that exists, (energy), must be a part of an awareness, and thus, alive.
In the "Real" world, this may seem ridiculous, but the "Real" world as you experience it is just a temporary perspective. Those atoms which make us up and which seem so solid and "real" are still just made of %99.9999999 (ad infinitum) space filled with little bits of vibration. So which is more real? The impression of the "real" world you carry around, or the true reality which can leave only an impression?
-FL
Nice plan, except for the fact that the good doctor forgot a little technical detail.IIRC, spraying a salt solution on ice will make the ice melt by lowering the freezing point for the mixture (which is why you use salt in winter on roads). In fact this plan was already advanced once with a different purpose in mind. During WW 2, the British were faced with the problem of providing air escort for the supply convoys traversing the North Atlantic route, and having to do so without aircraft carriers, so someone put forward the idea of cutting ice shelves about 3 by 1 miles in size and spraying them with seawater to make them thicker, to act as floating landing strips. If memory serves me right, there were a couple tests made with the expected disastrous results.
I should start buying up real estate in the canadian tundra, eh?
It's basically a frozen swamp. Buy mosquito nets too.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Second: We have way more than 100 years of fossil fuels left. Coal reserves are HUGE, plus shale oil, tar sands, maybe methane hydrates...
Third: I will raise your government study with a Science Magazine article by one of the world experts on iron fertilization, Penny Chisholm at MIT: "Despite the concerns of many oceanographers and environmental groups, the concept of industrial ocean fertilization is winning advocates. Proponents claim that ocean fertilization is an easily controlled, verifiable process that mimics nature; and that it is an environmentally benign, long-term solution to atmospheric CO2 accumulation (14). These claims are, quite simply, not true." Chisholm, S.W., P.G. Falkowski, and J.J. Cullen. Dis-Crediting Ocean Fertilization. Science 294:309-310. (2001)
After 500 years! To start with, it's 8 billion tons. From the fine article hosted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory...
if you note that all projections are that we will be INCREASING emissions in the future
Not if we don't find more oil. Oil production has nearly peaked.
Second: We have way more than 100 years of fossil fuels left. Coal reserves are HUGE, plus shale oil, tar sands, maybe methane hydrates...
Yes, but what is the major contributor? What is everyone's favorite fossil fuel? Why do we war with Iraq and Iran and suck up to Saudi Arabia? Oil. Light sweet crude.
Proponents claim that ocean fertilization is an easily controlled, verifiable process that mimics nature; and that it is an environmentally benign, long-term solution to atmospheric CO2 accumulation
Accelerating the process of CO2 -> Plankton -> Limestone might not be as easy as just dumping iron sulfate everywhere, but I haven't been shown how it has cataclysmic effects. In fact, all I've ever heard of the process is extremely positive. More plankton = more fish = more food for top predators, everyone's happy. Until you do it on a large enough scale to find the pitfalls, I seems to me that everyone is ignoring an obvious solution. No major detrimental effects were mentioned in the IronEx II study back in 95. Sure, it turned the water green, but what do ya expect? I'd be interested in hearing what Penny Chisholm finds so environmentally destructive about ocean fertilization. Anything relevant from that Science magazine article you'd like to contribute?
Fertilizing crops in our fields results in a lot of fertilizer ending up in our rivers causing algal blooms that can indeed cause some trouble like sporadic fish kills and pfiesteria, yet we haven't outlawed tillage or fertilizer yet. Apparently the tradeoff to feed humanity is worth the negligible environmental effects. Perhaps ocean fertilization is a limited solution which needs to be complimented by other practices, but all the people waving their hands and yelling the sky is falling is really making me sick. If you're really worried about the problem, fix it. And no, taking all the cars off the road or instituting draconian emission standards is not a solution. People need transportation, and the amount of CO2 contributed to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels pales in comparison to CO2 contributed by the decomposition of soil organic matter. You'd be better off chasing farmers than Ford.