Well, according to the article, you can. If we were to find our planet cooling, we could just release more CO2 into the atmosphere. Heating from global warming takes on the order of 20 years to take full effect. Ice ages occur on geological time scales which are much larger. Plus, it is far easier to put carbon into the atmosphere than take it out. So our best bet is to wait until we observe cooling and then react to it. Right now, however, we are seeing a noticeable increase in temperature. This suggests that global warming is occurring and will likely cause serious problems within our lifetime (or if not, in our children's lifetime).
Unfortunately, the effects from the ice age will not be apparent for another 1,500 years, while, on the other hand, the ice caps are already starting to melt. Though a small amount of global warming might be beneficial in the future for preventing an ice age (who knows what environmental impact THAT would have), it is very likely to be seriously detrimental for the next few centuries until then.
"Interesting that you thing that... because I don't see either side willing to compromise."
I strongly disagree. The Democrats have changed their bargaining position significantly since this whole debate came up. Their initial stance was to raise the debt limit without any change in budget, just like we have just about every other time. Now, they are pushing for plans that include around 2 trillion in spending cuts and between 0 and 1 trillion in revenue increases. Considering democrats typically oppose spending cuts, that's a pretty generous position.
The Republicans (or at least most of them), on the other hand, have refused to even consider revenue increases, demand we make trillions in spending cuts, and are refusing to raise the debt ceiling until we do.
That is the issue though. The summary mentions how Portugal is poor in oil but has a great deal of potential for solar and wind. This implies that by using sun and wind to create electricity somehow oil usage will drop. While I heavily support the switch to alternative fuels, this is just not true. Most oil is used for transportation rather than electricity. So the only way to save oil by switching to solar or wind is to use electric cars, which in general are not popular enough to be a heavy drain on the power grid. People really do need to learn the difference between electricity generation and oil usage, if nothing else just to make an informed decision when creating policy.
While I agree with you that cars are not nearly as green as buses, trains, bikes, etc, they are still sometimes a necessity. Some of us don't have a choice on the matter since there is no public transport for our commute. Ya, I would love it if there was, and we should invest in adding some, but until then, we need all the green solutions we can get. These companies found something that was cheap, easy to implement, and could make a real difference. I for one am quite happy about it.
Here traffic lights are made to be a source of income. They are designed to stop you and increase your chances of running a yellow light so that the cops can pull you over and give you a ticket. Plus, it has the guise of making the roads safer (since people don't have as many green lights, they cannot speed as much), so much of the public is mostly ok with it. Unfortunately, in reality, we're just wasting fuel and making the roads more dangerous (more rear end crashes and angrier drivers).
'Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort,' wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. 'When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life.'
I just thought it was a bit ironic to blog about one's Internet addiction
There was a recent slashdot story on this. The common person in China probably will not see too much of a difference with Google gone, since they do have Baidu, but scientists and researchers will since they rely heavily on Google Scholar, which China has yet to reproduce their own version of.
FTFA: "They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she said. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
"Who controls the past, controls the future.
Who controls the present, controls the past."
---- 1984 by George Orwell
2 birds, 1 very expensive stone. It would probably cost a great deal of money to build tunnels, evacuate out almost all the air, and maintain that low atmosphere. Sure, it might save some energy of running the train, but the money and resources needed to do this would greatly outweigh any benefit. We are almost certainly much better off investing in other ways of producing or saving energy.
"what if they collected the fresh water vapour that is evaporating off the salt water as well?"
I was thinking that might actually be a good idea, with a slight tweak. Instead of collecting the evaporated water as a byproduct of this process, why not combine this with the process of reverse osmosis. One of the major difficulties with reverse osmosis (in addition to the energy requirement) is that it produces a highly concentrated brine that must be disposed of. Instead of dumping it back in the ocean, why not first use it to fuel this type of osmosis as well? That way, the process is not limited by the amount of heat in the environment because it does not need to evaporate any new source of water.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US have naval submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. And aren't those subs often docked near populated ports, San Diego for example. Thus, we have already accepted the risk of having nuclear power in populated areas, so it seems odd to be afraid of adding a few civilian nuclear reactors that are not in highly populated areas.
"I cannot imagine that it would take decades or centuries for dissolved CO2 to diffuse a few miles through water, even with a pressure gradient. I'd imagine months at most, more likely days."
It depends on where we dump the CO2. If it is added to the Northern Atlantic near Western Europe where the ocean currents descend, the CO2 could be sequestered for a thousand years. It would get trapped in the Thermohaline cycle and would not be able to resurface until the water in which it is trapped also resurfaces.
Although this would reduce the amount of energy used for cooling, heating costs would go up. For most people, it takes far more energy to heat a house than cool it. It takes 1200 KWh to cool a house in a temperate climate for a year, but it takes 12000 KWh to heat one . It is more useful to look for ways to heat a house more efficiently than cool it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, according to the article, you can. If we were to find our planet cooling, we could just release more CO2 into the atmosphere. Heating from global warming takes on the order of 20 years to take full effect. Ice ages occur on geological time scales which are much larger. Plus, it is far easier to put carbon into the atmosphere than take it out. So our best bet is to wait until we observe cooling and then react to it. Right now, however, we are seeing a noticeable increase in temperature. This suggests that global warming is occurring and will likely cause serious problems within our lifetime (or if not, in our children's lifetime).
Unfortunately, the effects from the ice age will not be apparent for another 1,500 years, while, on the other hand, the ice caps are already starting to melt. Though a small amount of global warming might be beneficial in the future for preventing an ice age (who knows what environmental impact THAT would have), it is very likely to be seriously detrimental for the next few centuries until then.
"Interesting that you thing that... because I don't see either side willing to compromise." I strongly disagree. The Democrats have changed their bargaining position significantly since this whole debate came up. Their initial stance was to raise the debt limit without any change in budget, just like we have just about every other time. Now, they are pushing for plans that include around 2 trillion in spending cuts and between 0 and 1 trillion in revenue increases. Considering democrats typically oppose spending cuts, that's a pretty generous position. The Republicans (or at least most of them), on the other hand, have refused to even consider revenue increases, demand we make trillions in spending cuts, and are refusing to raise the debt ceiling until we do.
That is the issue though. The summary mentions how Portugal is poor in oil but has a great deal of potential for solar and wind. This implies that by using sun and wind to create electricity somehow oil usage will drop. While I heavily support the switch to alternative fuels, this is just not true. Most oil is used for transportation rather than electricity. So the only way to save oil by switching to solar or wind is to use electric cars, which in general are not popular enough to be a heavy drain on the power grid. People really do need to learn the difference between electricity generation and oil usage, if nothing else just to make an informed decision when creating policy.
While I agree with you that cars are not nearly as green as buses, trains, bikes, etc, they are still sometimes a necessity. Some of us don't have a choice on the matter since there is no public transport for our commute. Ya, I would love it if there was, and we should invest in adding some, but until then, we need all the green solutions we can get. These companies found something that was cheap, easy to implement, and could make a real difference. I for one am quite happy about it.
Here traffic lights are made to be a source of income. They are designed to stop you and increase your chances of running a yellow light so that the cops can pull you over and give you a ticket. Plus, it has the guise of making the roads safer (since people don't have as many green lights, they cannot speed as much), so much of the public is mostly ok with it. Unfortunately, in reality, we're just wasting fuel and making the roads more dangerous (more rear end crashes and angrier drivers).
'Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort,' wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. 'When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life.' I just thought it was a bit ironic to blog about one's Internet addiction
There was a recent slashdot story on this. The common person in China probably will not see too much of a difference with Google gone, since they do have Baidu, but scientists and researchers will since they rely heavily on Google Scholar, which China has yet to reproduce their own version of.
FTFA: "They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she said. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world." "Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past." ---- 1984 by George Orwell
2 birds, 1 very expensive stone. It would probably cost a great deal of money to build tunnels, evacuate out almost all the air, and maintain that low atmosphere. Sure, it might save some energy of running the train, but the money and resources needed to do this would greatly outweigh any benefit. We are almost certainly much better off investing in other ways of producing or saving energy.
"what if they collected the fresh water vapour that is evaporating off the salt water as well?" I was thinking that might actually be a good idea, with a slight tweak. Instead of collecting the evaporated water as a byproduct of this process, why not combine this with the process of reverse osmosis. One of the major difficulties with reverse osmosis (in addition to the energy requirement) is that it produces a highly concentrated brine that must be disposed of. Instead of dumping it back in the ocean, why not first use it to fuel this type of osmosis as well? That way, the process is not limited by the amount of heat in the environment because it does not need to evaporate any new source of water.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US have naval submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. And aren't those subs often docked near populated ports, San Diego for example. Thus, we have already accepted the risk of having nuclear power in populated areas, so it seems odd to be afraid of adding a few civilian nuclear reactors that are not in highly populated areas.
"I cannot imagine that it would take decades or centuries for dissolved CO2 to diffuse a few miles through water, even with a pressure gradient. I'd imagine months at most, more likely days." It depends on where we dump the CO2. If it is added to the Northern Atlantic near Western Europe where the ocean currents descend, the CO2 could be sequestered for a thousand years. It would get trapped in the Thermohaline cycle and would not be able to resurface until the water in which it is trapped also resurfaces.
Although this would reduce the amount of energy used for cooling, heating costs would go up. For most people, it takes far more energy to heat a house than cool it. It takes 1200 KWh to cool a house in a temperate climate for a year, but it takes 12000 KWh to heat one . It is more useful to look for ways to heat a house more efficiently than cool it.