Planting more trees adds a carbon "sink", since it's that much more carbon locked up as biomass, but they don't magic it away.
It takes CO2 out of the atmosphere. There's no need to magic it away as long as the biomass isn't being burned immeditately after growing.
As long as the amount of carbon in the system doesn't change, the greenhouse effect will remain where it is (at least over human timeframes).
If you can change the ratio of CO2 in the atmosphere to carbon bound solid organic molecules, the greenhouse effect will get less.
To solve this permanently, we'd need to create carbon sinks that are outside of the carbon cycle, to replace the fossil fuel carbon sinks we've already burned.
A forest will, given enough time, do that. The end result is called "soil".
Any carbon locked up in in organisms is going to find it's way back into the air.
As long as you can lock up more carbon in solid form than finds its way back into the air in the same amount of time, the CO2 level in the atmosphere will drop.
hat way if Global Warming really does get as bad as is being predicted, we can give ourselves a couple decades of twilight to try and sort out the environment.
Yay. Suffocating ourselves is definitely going to sort things out.
What if MegaCorp(TM), drove up to your house one day and towed away your car on some flimsy legal pretense?
Hasn't this happened before ? Or does it make much of a difference that the corp has to go to the government first, present a business plan, and then the government takes away your property, crying "eminent domain", and hands it over to the corp ?
Ugh. No. For the same reason you don't copy and paste code, but rather modularize it into one place, so the two can't get out of sync, you don't try to duplicate the functionality of the code in comments. Redundant and hazardous.
That's why I wrote "functionality" instead of "function". The comment of a function should say what the function is supposed to do (unless it's so trivial that the name of the function is description enough), i.e. "// Function returns square root of input argument". That's different from commenting what every line should do ("a++;// increment a"), which is, naturally, redundant. Unless you're coding in assembly.
That typically occurs under one of the following three conditions:
No, because it has nothing to do with the language. It might even just be a matter of certain constants. "Why did he use filter coefficients c0...c15?" has nothing to do with any programming language.
1) The last programmer was not proficient in the language and how its developer community uses it.
Ah. Never seen code written for a custom ASIC by some guy 15 years ago in pure assembly (of course, the ASIC has its own dialect), who thought he was completely above any meaningful commenting ?
I see the level of commenting advocated by people as a bell curve plotted over their time and experience with programming, and with a particular language:
Uh. Comments should have very little (ideally: zero) to do with the programming language used. Ideally, the comments should allow to re-create the functionality in any language, without looking at the actual code.
If I don't understand a particular construct in a particular language, I can simply look it up in a textbook.
If I don't understand why the last programmer did something, or what he was trying to accomplish, I'm out of luck. Because the last guy may be dead, have moved to Mars, or simply forgotten about what he was doing fifteen years ago.
You are soooo wrong. I deal with code every day that is well written but uncommented and therefore unmaintainable and in my mind it should be thrown way.
Well... an issue here is what exactly should go into the comments.
Well written code should not need comments about what it is doing, unless there's absolutely no way of doing something in a non-obvious manner.
However, any code needs comments about what it should do (debugging is a lot easier if you have defined that function X should do Y, but it is really doing Z), and maybe comments about why certain decisions were made. I'm dealing with a lot of ancient code, and I always have to make up some answer for questions like "Why did they use this type of filter, and not another (more logical one) ? Was there a reason ? Did they roll dice ?".
Greg says: "Sometimes...the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home... If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision." What do you think?
Not casting a vote is a sign that you agree with what's going on.
Go to the polls, and cast an invalid ballot (make lots of check-marks, draw on it, whatever). Of course, this might not work with voting machines.
We might be changing the environment, but it's still on a much smaller scale (a couple of PPM) than what a different species did billions of years ago (around 90%)
You forgot to mention that the different species didn't just do this a billion years ago, it also took them a couple million years.
Humans doing even a couple ppm in just a few hundred years is pretty remarkable.
Any decent Italian place that knows how to make a decent Espresso, for example. (hint: decent Espressos come in shotglass-like serving sizes, not in an 8 oz. cup).
Anyway. Starbucks is good for coffee-flavored deserts. For real coffee, go somewhere else.
You still haven't reviewed the truth table. There is no fallacy to point out.
"A implies B" is always true if A is false. "A implies B" is only false if A is true and B is false. If A is false (People don't smoke), the implication is true.
Really? So if we let A be cigarette smoking and B be lung cancer, then the existence of lung cancer in people who do not smoke implies that it is not the case that cigarette smoking causes cancer?
*BZZZZZZT*
Your geek license has been temporarily suspended.
Please review the truth table for logical implication.
It's also because you don't really need air conditioning in most parts of Europe, most of the engines use higher-grade fuel instead of huge displacements, manual transmissions are far more common, Europeans would rather drive a station wagen than a SUV, Diesel engines aren't (mistakenly) believed to be dirty and just for trucks, etc.
I've traveled for over 10 years to 18-19 countries. Never treated so rudely.
Well, in that case, you haven't been travelling long enough. What you describe sounded only slightly more rude than the treatment you'd have gotten when entering the (now nonexistent) German Democratic Republic. Maybe the border guards there would have been slightly more polite, as you were probably bringing (Western) currency into the country.
In other words, the US is so fucking rich, it can afford to help the most while giving the least per capita.
Erm. I think you need to go back to math class. What you were trying to say was:
In other words, the US is so fucking populous, it can afford to help the most while giving the least per capita
Or maybe you need to go back to Latin class ? "per capita" literally means "per head", aka "relative to the number of people". Not relative to the GDP or some other money-related indicator.
Oh well. Thanks for serving as an example for typical negative American stereotypes.
Wow. Where's Bin Ladens head on a pike displayed on the White House lawn ? I don't see it. I did see him featured in a campaign ad, however. Wonder why this is so ?
Slashdot Mirror
It takes CO2 out of the atmosphere. There's no need to magic it away as long as the biomass isn't being burned immeditately after growing.
As long as the amount of carbon in the system doesn't change, the greenhouse effect will remain where it is (at least over human timeframes).
If you can change the ratio of CO2 in the atmosphere to carbon bound solid organic molecules, the greenhouse effect will get less.
To solve this permanently, we'd need to create carbon sinks that are outside of the carbon cycle, to replace the fossil fuel carbon sinks we've already burned.
A forest will, given enough time, do that. The end result is called "soil".
Any carbon locked up in in organisms is going to find it's way back into the air.
As long as you can lock up more carbon in solid form than finds its way back into the air in the same amount of time, the CO2 level in the atmosphere will drop.
Please pick up the nearest biology textbook and review the chapter about photosynthesis.
If there is no biology textbook nearby, here's the simplified version:
water + carbon dioxide + energy (light) -> oxygen + sugar
You're obviously not intimately familiar with the theory of relativity.
Yay. Suffocating ourselves is definitely going to sort things out.
Hasn't this happened before ? Or does it make much of a difference that the corp has to go to the government first, present a business plan, and then the government takes away your property, crying "eminent domain", and hands it over to the corp ?
If large numbers of infantry start coming across the border, it's time to break out something slightly more destructive than small arms.
That's why I wrote "functionality" instead of "function". The comment of a function should say what the function is supposed to do (unless it's so trivial that the name of the function is description enough), i.e. "// Function returns square root of input argument". That's different from commenting what every line should do ("a++; // increment a"), which is, naturally, redundant. Unless you're coding in assembly.
That typically occurs under one of the following three conditions:
No, because it has nothing to do with the language. It might even just be a matter of certain constants. "Why did he use filter coefficients c0...c15?" has nothing to do with any programming language.
1) The last programmer was not proficient in the language and how its developer community uses it.
Ah. Never seen code written for a custom ASIC by some guy 15 years ago in pure assembly (of course, the ASIC has its own dialect), who thought he was completely above any meaningful commenting ?
Uh. Comments should have very little (ideally: zero) to do with the programming language used. Ideally, the comments should allow to re-create the functionality in any language, without looking at the actual code.
If I don't understand a particular construct in a particular language, I can simply look it up in a textbook.
If I don't understand why the last programmer did something, or what he was trying to accomplish, I'm out of luck. Because the last guy may be dead, have moved to Mars, or simply forgotten about what he was doing fifteen years ago.
Well
Well written code should not need comments about what it is doing, unless there's absolutely no way of doing something in a non-obvious manner.
However, any code needs comments about what it should do (debugging is a lot easier if you have defined that function X should do Y, but it is really doing Z), and maybe comments about why certain decisions were made. I'm dealing with a lot of ancient code, and I always have to make up some answer for questions like "Why did they use this type of filter, and not another (more logical one) ? Was there a reason ? Did they roll dice ?".
That ain't gonna help you. It just means that you didn't get to vote.
You may welcome your new overlords again now.
Not casting a vote is a sign that you agree with what's going on.
Go to the polls, and cast an invalid ballot (make lots of check-marks, draw on it, whatever). Of course, this might not work with voting machines.
You forgot to mention that the different species didn't just do this a billion years ago, it also took them a couple million years.
Humans doing even a couple ppm in just a few hundred years is pretty remarkable.
... could they please try it out on a planet less valuable to us ? Venus, maybe ?
If the IRS hasn't figured this little trick out, they're kinda slow.
Uh huh. Gas is over $5 per gallon in a major part of the civilized world, and no one's starving there. Magic ?
Spend your money on ammo, then. You'll need it if you want to secure a patch of still-habitable land.
Anyway. Starbucks is good for coffee-flavored deserts. For real coffee, go somewhere else.
You still haven't reviewed the truth table. There is no fallacy to point out.
"A implies B" is always true if A is false. "A implies B" is only false if A is true and B is false. If A is false (People don't smoke), the implication is true.
*BZZZZZZT*
Your geek license has been temporarily suspended.
Please review the truth table for logical implication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_implication
It's also because you don't really need air conditioning in most parts of Europe, most of the engines use higher-grade fuel instead of huge displacements, manual transmissions are far more common, Europeans would rather drive a station wagen than a SUV, Diesel engines aren't (mistakenly) believed to be dirty and just for trucks, etc.
Really, there is no weirdness at all.
Well, in that case, you haven't been travelling long enough. What you describe sounded only slightly more rude than the treatment you'd have gotten when entering the (now nonexistent) German Democratic Republic. Maybe the border guards there would have been slightly more polite, as you were probably bringing (Western) currency into the country.
Erm. I think you need to go back to math class. What you were trying to say was:
In other words, the US is so fucking populous, it can afford to help the most while giving the least per capita
Or maybe you need to go back to Latin class ? "per capita" literally means "per head", aka "relative to the number of people". Not relative to the GDP or some other money-related indicator.
Oh well. Thanks for serving as an example for typical negative American stereotypes.
Wow. Where's Bin Ladens head on a pike displayed on the White House lawn ? I don't see it. I did see him featured in a campaign ad, however. Wonder why this is so ?
Don't forget secret laws, so people won't even know why they're being put in jail.
No, since you could still receive foreign broadcasts in the case you describe.