Mass Extinctions from Global Warming?

uncleO writes "The current issue of Scientific American has an interesting article, Impact from the Deep, about the possible causes for the five major global extinctions. It contends that only the most recent one was caused by a 'dinosaur killer' asteroid impact. Evidence suggests that the others were caused by 'great bubbles of toxic H2S gas erupting into the atmosphere' from the oceans due to anoxia." From the article: "The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm...climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm...to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century."

Comments

Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[fyngyrz]

The only extinction I really expect to see is that of the reputations of "scientists" who harp on CO2 emissions when CO2 is a very small part of the overall picture; Methane has a far greater effect, as do many other things.

We have every reason to reduce emissions. I'm absolutely pro-emission-reduction; cleaner air is better for every living thing and that's a perfectly good justification to swing me. However, bogus, over-hyped faux "science" just serves to give the opponents somewhere to stand and take a swing at the "scientists."

The fact is, we've been warmer, and we've been colder, and CO2 is not the be-all, end-all index of why it is cold or hot. For instance, just let a major volcano erupt and you'll see a temperature swing that'll get your attention. Or let methane generation get completely out of hand, that'll put CO2 in perspective for you.

Aside from all that, we'll cope with whatever comes our way, anyway. We always have; we always will. Barring asteroid impacts, of course.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Clirion]

Did you actually read what he did say? We have every reason to reduce emissions. I'm absolutely pro-emission-reduction; cleaner air is better for every living thing and that's a perfectly good justification to swing me. Seems to me he may actually want to reduce the emissions, just the hype around it is bad.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Daniel Franklin]

Are you a "scientist"?

Perhaps you should read some of the literature. Of all the greenhouse gases, CO2 is, by a considerable margin, the most significant. Methane (and others) are far more potent... there just isn't as much, so their effect is smaller.

The fact is, global temperatures are strongly correlated with CO2 concentration. That's a mathematical fact, recorded in the ice of Antarctica. CO2 concentrations are increasing at an unprecedented rate. This is a real cause for concern. Glaciers are shrinking... major chunks of Antarctica are just melting away. I don't doubt that we can survive. However, unless we do something *now* about all the crap we are pumping into the atmosphere (primarily CO2, but also methane and others) we are going to see significant rises in sea levels within our lifetime.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Alef]

Methane has a far greater effect, as do many other things.

Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas per molecule. But that doesn't mean it has a greater impact, since there is much less methane being released into the atmosphere.

As a funny side note: a significant amount (more than a third) of the anthropogenic methane emissions are coming from agriculture -- farting livestock basically.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[ccarson]

I've been following global warming for a long time now doing a lot research on the side for the last couple of years. Here are some facts about global warming. Some of which you hear and don't hear from the main stream media:

1.) The world appears to be getting warmer with many computer models showing an increase in global temperature.
2.) Tying a trend to warmer temperatures based on older data from the early 1900's is suspect at best. Good, reliable, accurate scientific equipment that measures the temperature wasn't readily available until recently (late 1900's).
3.) The sun's activity has increased by approx. 10% in the last 15 years. In other words, it's getting hotter.
4.) Apparently, the Earth magnetic field has decreased by 10% in the last 10 years. I'm an electrical engineer and during my studies in particle physics, I learned that a particles velocity can be affected by magnetic fields. I keep hearing about the increased activity of our Sun and believe it's possible that more of the Sun's radiation is penetrating the Earth's magnetic field due to it being weaker. If more radiation hits the Earth and the Sun is spewing out more heat, shouldn't that also increase the overall temperature of the Earth and can global warming be attributed to this?
5.) Jupitor is experiencing the same climate change that Earth is. (source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html)
6.) Mars is experiencing the same climate change that Earth is. (source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_snow_011206-1.html)


How can you explain the recent same climate changes on different planets? I doubt it's all those cars being driven there.

Is it possible that the warmer temperatures that Earth is experiencing are caused by cyclical natural phenomena? What about glaciers in Greenland that have been shrinking for 100 years (source: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/21/060821191 826.o0mynclv.html)? What about the American dust bowl in the early 1930's? Was that caused by huge carbon emissions or was it a small natural climate cycle that just happens? Also, how do you explain huge ice ages on Earth? Were those climate changes, which are no doubt more extreme than what's going on now, caused by the combustion engine?

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Elkboy]

2.) Scientists do new measurements on old sources. We don't just rely on old measurements.

3.) Who says that? According to the World Radiation Center and the Max Planck institute, there has been no increase in solar irradiance since the 40s.

5.) Jupiter, the gas giant, which is so much like the earth? As for Mars, it's interesting how just a few snaps from space can make you think, while years and years of direct measurements and hundreds of thousands of years of proxy data from earth means nothing.

Noone is denying that natural cycles exist. But there is no theory to explain the observed climate changes based on natural cycles alone. They work on time scales of thousands of years, while we're seeing change on a scale of just decades or centuries. What natural cycles do show us, however, is that an increase in CO2 concentration means higher temperatures. That is a fact, just as the observed spike in CO2 concentration is a fact. The data also shows that natural CO2 fluctuations did have a strong effect on ice ages and warm periods, and now humans have increased CO2 levels to historical highs.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[fyngyrz]

Who says that? According to the World Radiation Center and the Max Planck institute, there has been no increase in solar irradiance since the 40s.

There have been some really exceptional flares recently, X-class and basically darned near off the scale (X22(!), in 2001 if memory serves.) We've been lucky enough to miss a direct hit from the worst of them, but clearly, old sol is having a bit of a temper tantrum, at least when you consider the narrow environmental window we can survive within. As a ham radio operator, I've been carefully watching, and been directly affected by, the 11-ish year solar cycle for the last fifty years, and I can tell you that the atmosphere's behavior today in terms of propagation is not even remotely similar to the way it was when I first began paying attention. This is essentially a direct the result of solar activity, and of little else, as near as anyone has been able to figure out. So I'm inclined to be doubtful when anyone says that solar input to the planet isn't changing, based on my own observations, for which I have logs dating back to the late fifties.

But there is no theory to explain the observed climate changes based on natural cycles alone.

This does not mean that we are not seeing a natural cycle. There is no validated theory connecting quantum and macro level activity, either, but that doesn't mean it isn't connected. There is no theory that definitively explains how a "big bang" could come about, yet it may be the case, and so on. The bottom line is, nature doesn't give a hoot for our theories, it does what it does despite what we believe. Theories are our best shot at trying to understand what is going on. But in many cases -- how brains work, what intelligence means, interesting details about gravity, and yes, climate, theory is not really very well nailed down.

The fact that in the geological record, CO2 increases lag warming periods by quite a bit puts at least some reasonable doubt on it as a causative agent, per se. Dust, on the other hand, is a known causative agent (see 1816, AKA the "year without a summer" for a seminal example.) It may well be that particulates are a far greater villain in the end. Certainly the more recent records (last millennium or so) favors this outlook.

Look, it is perfectly reasonable to argue for reduction of emissions. We have lots of right here, right now, reasons to so argue. Acid rain. Particulate levels of various unfriendly materials. Radioactivity from burning coal. Simple visibility beyond a mile or so in urban areas. Why not stick with what we actually know instead of creating a cult of "CO2 is the Evil Heat God" worshipers out of what is really pretty doubtful (and ass backwards in terms of causality) theory? Maybe a hundred years from now we'll have a handle on climate. Maybe (though I personally doubt it) on weather as well. But clearly, we do not today, and it seems quite ridiculous to get in a froth over such doubtful science.

And then there's the whole "politically correct" factor; there is no question that speaking against the climate change faction is not any way to get funding, to get published, or even to get invited to a party. That's got a very bad smell when it applies to science. We're supposed to make predictions from the data, not match the data to our predictions, no matter what the outside influences are. I fear climate science has done very poorly in this regard. From strident predictions of an "immanent ice age" to "we're all gonna fry!" within the space of a few decades is a real bell-ringer. It seems to me that these folks need to spend a little more time looking at what is happening before we should pay them a whole lot of attention in terms of them having the definitive scoop on what's going to happen... or not.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[fyngyrz]

Without going into a great deal of detail, let me provide a couple of pointers you can use to begin hunting stuff up on the net.

First, with regard to storage of nuclear waste. Passivated glass block storage solves all the storage problems. The waste is distributed in the block, the block will last longer than the waste's dangerous lifespan, the production of the block is easy and the stored materials will neither erode, progress chemically, or distribute themselves through the environment any other way. The technology is here now, and all it takes is using it to resolve the problem. In other words, money. The only down side is that once in said glass block, the "waste" is really waste, that is, we can't use it for anything else. This may not be optimum.

Second, with regard to accidents, modern reactor designs don't have those same kinds of problems. Neither do smaller, low-ish power reactors. For instance, look up pebble bed reactors. Good design is important.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Max von H.]

What about the American dust bowl in the early 1930's? Was that caused by huge carbon emissions or was it a small natural climate cycle that just happens?

That was man made, according to this wikipedia article:

"The Dust Bowl was the result of a series of dust storms in the central United States and Canada from 1934 to 1939, caused by decades of inappropriate farming techniques, with buffalo herds that fertilized the soil displaced by wheat farming, followed by a severe drought. The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During the drought, the soil dried out, became dust, and blew away eastwards, mostly in large black clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky all the way to Chicago, and much of the soil was completely lost into the Atlantic Ocean."

Get your facts straight, puhleeeaaase! Western civilization and productivist agriculture hold a nasty record in destroying the environment on a wide scale. You can't destroy entire ecosystems without suffering consequenses, short-term and long-term.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[NockPoint]

The above post is a troll.

Well, of course we won't dig up all the coal and burn all the oil.

Fossil fuel reserves are for economically producable oil and coal. There is roughly enough economically producable coal to take the CO2 level to very roughly 2400 ppm from the current 380 ppm. There is lots more fossil carbon that isn't economically producable, at least with current technologies. Like oil shales.

..how come nobody complains that we're using up all the oxygen?

Because most of the rest of us can do math. To take the CO2 level up by 2000 ppm will indeed bring the O2 level down by 2000 ppm. Or 2 parts per thousand. Or from about 20.9% to about 20.7%. Complete non-issue.

--

Error 696. Missing sig.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[ajs]

First off, excellent post, and thank you.

I just wanted to follow up on one bit:

Look, it is perfectly reasonable to argue for reduction of emissions. We have lots of right here, right now, reasons to so argue. Acid rain. Particulate levels of various unfriendly materials. Radioactivity from burning coal. Simple visibility beyond a mile or so in urban areas.

This is where classic risk management comes in, a topic sadly ignored by most of the current round of environmentalists. Topics with long-range impact and highly variable outcomes (global warming, nuclear waste) are hot-buttons, but companies that are polluting the third world to an extent where immediate and large-scale deaths result (Coca-Cola and Union Carbide, for example, not to mention the Chinese government) get almost no attention. All of the focus right now is on the emission of CO2. Sulphur and other toxins which have greater impact on the environment in the short term are nearly ignored.

In fact, most of the problems that you list have very little to do with CO2, and current plans to reduce CO2 emissions would have little impact on them.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[AoT]

I must say, this is a wonderful expansion of the older versions of anti-global warming arguments. Let's boil it down to what you're really saying.

Science is a long and slow process. You cannot knee-jerk it into working for you, as so many people want to believe. It has taken science 77 years just to prove that breast really isn't best (it's just equal). Something as simple to study as that takes 77 years to get right, you better believe something as complicated and with so many more uncontrollable factors as the environment will take much longer.

Yes, the environment is a complex system and can be quite difficult to understand. I'm a bit confused about the "breast isn't best" comment. I assume you mean the recent study that showed that breast feeding didn't contribute to intellegence levels, which is fine, but it does contribute to the immune system.

The question is, are we willing to risk total destruction of our economy and pre-industrial revolution living standards over what amounts to little more than a scientific theory? We're not talking about a theory that has concretely provable (and now, again, disprovable) components like Einstein's theory of relativity -- we're talking multiple theories that, while in the general sense show a consensus, in the specific sense show several different paths to take and have no specific way to prove them right now other than to take the plunge and see what happens.

Ah, here comes the scare factor. I can flip this around and ask whether we are willing to bet our living standards on continuing things the way they are now on the assumption that things will remain the same? Do we expect our world to support continued growth for an indefinite time? We're talking about multiple assumptions that seem reasonable but have no evidence at all that things will remain the same, in fact we have evidence to the opposite.

I, for one, would rather take the cautious route and wait for more concrete, proven, and accurate information. The economy isn't a laser light beam that you can turn on and off at will. Turning it off (which is what would be required to reduce emissions to the point that most of the more environmentally-evagelistic scientists wish) will result in drastic changes not only to things like lifestyle, but also drastic changes to our standards of health and hunger.

I, for one, believe there is a much better middle ground than "no more CO2 emissions". But, unfortunately, as long as the extremists are able to shout the loudest, we will continue to be unable to find the middle ground.

Again, this isn't what you're saying. What you're saying is that you would like hard evidence that what you think is wrong, and yet you fail to present evidence that your view is correct.

This really is not much more different than religion, if you think about it. Consider that to the right you would have extremist christians and catholics, people who would, at some point in time, find a way to get rid of anyone who wasn't white. And to the left you have extremist muslims that would be happy to blow up anyone that isn't arabic. In the middle you have people who are whatever religion their parents were and that go to church once a month out of a sense of duty, and some agnostics that don't care so much. Your ultra-right christians would be like your Exxons of the world that just want it all at any cost. Your ultra-left muslims would be like your greenpeaces of the world that just want everyone to have nothing at any cost. Everyone else wants a life of balance but can't get it as long as the other two keep fighting each other.

No, it is completely different than religion. Religion has no basis in evidence, religion is based on faith.

Example 1: We could easily power everything we use today with nuclear power, at a cost to the economy, if implemented slowly, that would be negligible. The end result would even likely be positive. But we can't have that because ultra-left environmental groups like the Sierra Club

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>From strident predictions of an "immanent ice age" to "we're all gonna fry!" within the space of a few decades

Someone took the time to assemble a bibliography of climate change literature from the 70s with reference to predictions of cooling. In the scientific literature, as contrasted with Newsweek, the closest thing was a paper that pointed out the current interglacial could end in a few thousand years, or maybe even a few hundred. The overwhelming bulk reached the totally accurate conclusion that they didn't know enough to make a prediction.

The hard data on solar output from satellite measurements goes back fifteen years and is kinda-sorta constant over that period. Much earlier, and you're relying on horribly indirect proxy measurements like radionuclides. There are a lot of uncertainties about trends in solar output, although some climatologists think it could account for 10-30% of the temperature rise we've seen.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[HiThere]

I'm not totally convinced that "passivated glass brick" is the optimum waste disposal. It's certainly, however, better than what we do with coal (dump it into the atmosphere). I'm also not convinced that it's feasible to safely bury CO2. Some of those disposals have failure modes that are quite frightening.

To me an optimal disposal method for radio waste would packetize it in a way that would allow it to be recovered if that became economically viable. (Say, for use in a fast-breeder.) But you also want it dispersed so that it didn't undergo "mini-chains" that caused it to burn itself up too quickly. Small blobs in flat sheets separated by about a foot (of plaster? cement?) sounds good. The sheets could be as large as is convenient to handle. Some PVC mimic would be a good choice for what to make them out of. That way they could be loosely rolled for transport. (Unless someone things it worthwhile to build a cadmium spiral cylinder to store them in. Or to transport them flat separated by cadmium sheets. Not likely. Just keep them separated, and make sure that no one sheet will go critical even if you roll it tightly--and then ensure that it is rolled loosely (with styrofoam spacers?. (That should be easy. This is waste, not fuel.)

The thing is, while the stuff is encased in plastic it's only dangerous to folk that are near it. It's not explosive. So you need to keep it cool enough to not melt the plastic...but you've already used it as throughly as is reasonably economic, so it's not super hot thermally.

OTOH, if you just want it to go away and never return, then passivated glass bricks are hard to beat. You could even use them to pre-heat water for a steam plant for the first decade or so. (I'm presuming that the passivation includes something like sealing the bricks in paraffin so that water can't leach through... if you plan for that, then you don't need to worry about it's happening accidentally. Then put the bricks in a plastic bag before you dump them in the water to heat it, and all should be well.)

Give Up - Commercial Interests too Powerful

[SRA8]

Give up people. Commercia interests are too powerful to care about Global Warming. Heck, they cant manage to fix things that will affect us in 10 to 20 yrs (social security, balooning health care.) Who cares about something truly long term? Please correct me if i'm wrong, but I do think that we're screwed on this one...

Re:Give Up - Commercial Interests too Powerful

[LaughingCoder]

Commercia[l] interests are too powerful to care about Global Warming.

This attitude drives me crazy. If a large number of consumers start demanding greener products, some "commercial interest" will supply them. They will do this to gain an advantage over their competitors or a foothold in an entrenched market. Witness hybrid cars. They command a significant price premium over gas-only, yet there are waiting lists to buy them. Most financial analysts say they don't pay back that premium, even at $4/gallon for gas. But yet many people buy them anyhow - because they believe in the cause. And I'm sure they are very profitable as well (that nasty p-word). Those profits help the "commercial interests" to re-invest in even better models and progress is made. What is not helpful is reams of well-meaning government regulations which mostly serve to suffocate innovation, while at the same time, usually having unintended consequences that are more damaging than the problem they were attempting to address.

Politicians won't care

[PhoenixAtlantios]

The politicians, their children, and even their children's children will all be dead and long gone by the time the next century ends (2200). If you want them to do something, try pointing out the implications global warming will have before they die.

Re:i wouldn't worry,

[Jules IV]

Sorry to be bad news, but i really doubt we will ever live on Mars,its an utopia. We might get some minerals and riches (some rare metals and alloys maybye) but there will never be any life or civilization on this planet, it will probably be exploited by robots. It has seized its volcanic activities for a long time, so the 'core' of the planet died several thousand of years ago, so there is no hope of having a planet with any atmosphere, and since the magnetic core is not existing at all, the gamma radiation levels will always be unfavorable to any settlement of human colony. So, to our knowledge, there is only one planet on which life is possible, its earth, lets try to manage it cleverly for a while, since there is no escape from it.

Re:One wonders

[Alef]

Environmentalists :
-> CO2 will cause mass extinctions but also
-> gsms cause brain cancer (show me one single case ...)
-> against nuclear power, the easiest and most economically viable option to stopping global warning

Everybody else
-> There is not sufficient evidence to really change our policy (this btw, is unfortunately very true)
-> Therefore CO2 does not cause problems (this conclusion may be true, but the honest answer is : we don't know)

You are trolling. First you label everyone believing that human induced global climate change is really happening as "the environmentalists" in an attempt to discredit that opinion, ascribing it to a relatively small number of extremists. Then you put a bunch other opinions in the mouths of these people to make them sound irrational and stupid.

All this when in reality the vast majority of researchers and people (at least outside the US) find that there are strong reasons to think that we are causing global warming, and that the consequences likely are devastating for a large portion of the Earth.

Re:One wonders

[RoLi]

Environmentalists: [..] gsms cause brain cancer (show me one single case ...)

First of all, "environmentalists" are not a single block of people but there are many different opinions. Second, the mobile phone hysteria was bred by esoterics, not environmentalists and even though there might be some overlap, those are different groups. Third, this hysteria is pretty much over already, so you are not knocking down a strawman - it's already knocked down. 4: Even if "environmentalists" said that, being wrong on one thing doesn't make you wrong on everything.

There is not sufficient evidence to really change our policy (this btw, is unfortunately very true)

Actually there is sufficient evidence and a large part of the world DID already change it's policy. Germany is leading in wind power and Sweden wants to be independent of oil within some years. Many other countries do similar things to attack the problem.

Also, do you remember the problem with the ozone-layer? A world-wide effort by most countries (that time including the USA) dealt with the problem and it worked amazingly well. Today the ozone-layer is almost back to normal.

Therefore CO2 does not cause problems (this conclusion may be true, but the honest answer is : we don't know)

There is already a mountain of evidence that it does cause problems, but even if you ignore all that, messing around with something you are dependent on and you don't fully understand is pretty stupid, don't you agree? I think we should use a very conservative approach to environmental issues BECAUSE we don't fully understand it. To say it's "not a problem" because we don't understand it doesn't make the slightest sense at all.

Imho the environmentalist option to be against both oil and nuclear power is not going anywhere, it's just not helpful. You can call all you want for the moon to come down, but regardless it's just not going to happen. Also, you cannot turn of all energy in the country for 5 years until an alternative is developed. It needs to be here now, working and functional, and proven. Obviously you cannot turn over the country to something like wind power.

Things that can be done easily, without new technology and with modest investment:

• insolate the houses better to safe heating
• Use stone instead of wood houses so you no longer need air-conditioning (heavy stone houses don't heat up so quickly)
• Yeah I know, it's a terrible suggestion, but using smaller cars would safe a lot too. There is no need to move 3 tons to transport a 70kg human

BTW, wind power is already covering 4,3% of Germany's electricity (per 2005) and will cover 10% or more by 2020. The USA with a much lower population density could cover a much higher percentage than that.

Having said all that, I'm not really worried about global warming because the very same people who want to "safe the economy" by wasting oil will run the economy right into the ground as soon as Saudi-Arabia hits peak oil. (probably before 2010, but even if they can hold out longer it's merely a question of when, not if)

New Indirect Solar Power Generation Concept

[rohar]

I have been working on a design for an indirect solar power generation system that can be cost effective, location independent and I believe can be built with a low enough capital investment to compete directly with fossil fuels.

The idea is to build a standard low gradient heat platform that can be optimized for a geographical location's specific climate and geothermal features. The specific adaptation for arid regions utilizing absorption refrigeration especially shows promise.

Just a thought....

[grishknash]

Lots I want to reply to...
Probably the best source for scientific data and reliable modelling comes from the intergovernmental panel on climate change [ipcc.ch]. The last full report was from 2001 and is fully available on line and for free. I stupidly bought the books. The amount of synthesis of data performed is HUGE and from literally thousands of scientists in the field. It is truly the definitive work in progress. Due to the nature of science and the complex chaotic mechanisms of climate the models cannot be 100% conclusive; however, the four prospective models used have hypothesized the expected changes since 2001 fairly well. The four models assumed different scenarios of human responses to climate change. The four models being a reduction in CO2 emissions, constant increases, moderate increases and large increases in CO2 emissions. The effects of these models are classified according to a likelihood scale and associated percentages. Since the publication of the report, we have had 5 years to compare and contrast the models with reality. The modelling has done quite well. I suggest anyone who is interested read the synthesis report. The rest would take you a year or so to read :)
Since the report, due to the political tenderness of the topic, if anything, has been underreported and cautiously forwarded. It seems that one area that was underestimated in impact was the positive feedback mechanisms invovled in lost albedo and permafrost thaw. Also, the effects due to water vapor and cloud formation are still difficult to understand and predict.
As a teacher, I agree that we MUST listen and respond to the experts in the field and not political/religious/uninformed theorists. IE> michael Creighton and his ' State of Fear'. Some of the scientists he interviewed respond to his book at realclimate.org as well as a 'book report' in science magazine. Both are telling of the political nature of the topic.
Finally, we need to consider the larger manifestitions of 'global warming' with respect to increases in ocean acidity, altered weather patterns with respect to agriculture, etc. It is the unpredicatable spinoffs of global warming/climate change that will threaten society. Lack of food, lack of clean water and the wars associated with future conflicts we need to worry about.

Re:i wouldn't worry,

[gEvil (beta)]

That's something that I love about the whole terraforming argument. So many people out there believe that we'll be able to produce drastic rapid climate change on another planet and that it will completely stabilize itself the moment we snap our fingers and say "stop." We're only barely beginning to understand the climate of the planet we've inhabited for 2 million years. What makes you guys think we'll be able to go somewhere else with variables that we don't even know about and effect changes we can't make happen here?

Not Human Nature

[ChronoFish]

One of things that we have to accept about humans is that they are part of nature. It's not natural for humans (as a population, not necessarily individuals) to restrain themselves.

What this means (to me) is that the destruction that humans brings (aka man-made) is also natural. It is also natural for humans to destruct to the point of no-return - i.e. humans will use up every last natural-resource until there is no longer a natural-resource to use.

Whaling and fishing are great examples. The Atlantic Ocean used to have an abundance of (sperm) whales. But the human race killed them off - that didn't stop the whalers of course. Rather than realizing the impact and looking for alternatives, they setup long complex shipping routes. Boats from Nantucket (North Eastern US) would set sail and round Argentina (South America) and then exploit the waters of Hawaii and Singapore in the Pacific. Eventually killing off the whales there as well.

The reason for hunting whales? Primarily whale blubber -which was boiled down to oil - which was used as a power source. Eventually the stock of sperm whales dried up in the pacific as well - forcing humans to come up with an alternative - which they did (petrol) - thereby officially killing the whaling industry. (Sure Japan is still at it - but mostly for the meat which focus on other types of whales).

The point is that humans will not restrain themselves or conserve (with some notable exceptions of course) their natural resources. And this is a natural part of human nature - which is part of nature.

So yeah - we are doomed to repeat the process (there are countless examples) and the end result is that we will wipe ourselves out. But that is part of nature - to thrive until starvation. Every population does it. Name one animal that does not gorge themselves - even if it means death to the species.....

-CF

Troll Food.

[TapeCutter]

"I've been following global warming for a long time now doing a lot research on the side for the last couple of years. Here are some facts about global warming. Some of which you hear and don't hear from the main stream media"

Just in case you actually belive your "research", here is a handy mythbuster. A bit of research on that site will set you straight, the link itself points to a search on the word "myth", I'm confident the results will cover your objections and questions.

BTW: If you can come up with an original myth I'm sure the boffins at realclimate will be happy to try and bust it for you, if they can't then you may just end up famous.

Re:One wonders

[4D6963]

It's not like much electricity comes from burning oil or derivatives

Riiight, except that 80.2% of China's production of electricity and 71.4% of the USA's production of electricity is coming from fossil fuels, and that for the whole world 65.1% of electricity is produced from fossil fuels.

You're right, it's not that much, it's only two thirds.

Oversimplification

[ttfkam]

Yes, houses should be better insulated. Unfortunately, many homes are quite old and would require a non-trivial amount of money from the homeowner to improve. Since many new homeowners have a fat mortgage, children, a college fund, food bills, etc., a lot of folks will not rush out and do this.

It's not because they are evil or apathetic. They are simply not rich, are commonly sleep-deprived (read: have children), and flat out do not have time to deal with it (read: have children).

As far as your "use stone instead of wood houses," that is a red herring. Yes, when starting from scratch, a stone house would be better; however, US homes are overwhelmingly built upon wood construction. Those homes don't just magically go away just because we decide stone homes are better. Even if all new construction were to be stone homes -- a long shot considering that most construction workers are familiar with wood construction, not stone -- it would be a minuscule proportion of the total number of homes.

In addition, what would you propose for earthquake-prone regions? Stone? I think not. A very good reason to build wood homes is that the wood home will sway in an earthquake instead of crumble. In 1989, a major quake hit my area. Many homes survived, but the chimneys were by and large ruined. You simply can't buy a home around here that doesn't have a cracked or repaired chimney.

The suggestion about smaller, more fuel-efficient cars is actually the most reasonable suggestion you've made. Far more so than the suggestion about wind power. Why? Check out wind density in the US. Wind power completely excludes the south and most of the southwest. Just have one state sell to another? One word: Enron. Not gonna happen.

Also, let's look at your numbers. Possibly up to 10% by 2020 in Germany? In the US, we consume upwards of 4.8 trillion kilowatt-hours per year (with a 't'). The larger windmills generate up to 5 megawatts if the wind is blowing to full potential and the windmill is in perfect working order. That's potentially about 43.8 million kilowatt-hours per year. Those 5 megawatt jobs require about an acre of land apiece (they're really big!). Hmmm... Not only would it require 19,178 of those monsters to handle 10% of the US in the perfect case (hint: we live in the real world where perfect cases don't exist), but you'd have to factor in the maintenance costs associated with keeping such a decentralized power source in good repair. This requires -- you guessed it -- more energy. If you think the repair aspect is trivial, just remember the climate found in those northern states where the wind is so abundant. Hot summers and below freezing winters with hail and sleet in between.

Coal is currently the number one US electricity source: over 50% of our total electricity production. This is a problem. For reasons mentioned above, wind is not going to replace that. For reasons I haven't spelled out but you can research yourself, solar power can't displace coal either (1.367kWh/m^2 is the solar constant). The reasons are somewhat similar though: energy density and the demands of geography. So what's left?

Hydroelectric? We've already tapped that avenue. Microtidal? Over 90% of Earth's life exists within ten miles of a coastline. I'm a bit hesitant to mess with the energy transfer found in those ecosystems. Geothermal? The US is not Iceland. Biodiesel? The amount of cropland required to offset coal usage would significantly reduce the area available for food production.

What's left? Conservation? Even if we cut our usage in half -- 2.4 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, which incidentally will not happen in the US without an energy crisis afoot -- that's still a massive amount of power required.

And we haven't even factored in vehicle needs yet, which is necessary since oil won't last forever. Plug-in hybrids? Great idea. Gonna need more electricity for that.

What hasn't been discussed yet? Nuclear. Commonly

The whole "global warming" myth...

[fm6]

...is just a con to get the federal government to adopt fuel efficiency standards. That will force people to drive smaller cars, which will force them to have smaller families. It's just a conspiracy to impose involuntary birth control by a bunch of latte-swilling liberals who hate children!

Sounds like I'm flamebaiting, right? But that's pretty much the party line with the Eagle Forum crowd.