We have not mitigated the acid rain problem. It may be marginally lower in various US locals, but globally acid rain is still on the rise, particularly over the Pacific where much of the acid rain from India and China is deposited every day leading, along with carbon dioxide acidification, of marine waters. Considering that a pH drop of just 0.2 in the world oceans would probably eliminate the source of 50% of all human protein humans are presently consuming, its a very big UNSOLVED problem.
You fail to account for the inertia already built into the system. There is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has been for 800,000 years. We now know that carbon dioxide increases ended the last ice age, just moving from about 240 ppm to 340 ppm over a 5-10 million year period. Humans have moved carbon dioxide from 340 to 400 in just 100 years and it will likely reach 500 in the next 20-50 years even given our best efforts to stop it. Above 500 we will see heat probably too great for all but the most hardy and desiccation resistant plants to grow. Soil temperatures will simply cook the roots of most plants.
If you don't think we have a problem, just think about the fact that temperatures this May in Greenland have hit 76.6 F and summer is just getting started.
Global warming will not cause much higher food yields as less rather than more land will be arable, for lack of water over the interior of most continents. Botantists looking into to this already are predicting that about 80 percent of all plant biotomes will change dramatically over the next 100 years. Most forests will become grasslands and most grasslands, deserts. Arctic soils are too poor to support most food crops and they are not adapted to surviving without sunlight for much of the year.
You clearly underestimate just how hot its going to get once all the methane in Arctic permafrost gets released along with the marine methane clathrates. If the Permian extinction event tells us anything, its that very little will survive beyond bacteria and some plant life. If higher eucaryotes make it, it will likely be some insects.
The 90% at the bottom could have 3x as many babies and probably given their poverty together come nowhere near consuming as many resources and creating as much pollution as the upper 10%.
Changes to planet earth and its biosphere happen on scales of millions of years as well as microseconds. It has always been that way. The important thing to keep focused on is what kinds of changes and in what cumulative direction. A more apt analogy would be to think of humanity as riding a train doing about 30-40 mph suddenly discovering that the bridge a few miles down the track is too weak to support the weight of the train. Some will try desperately to hit the brakes, some will rush to the rear of the train, some will jump off the train, others will remain comfortably seated in the dining car finishing their 7th helping of pie complaining that the train is slowing down to fast for them to enjoy their meal, and the guy on his 17th helping of pie is too busy to even notice what's about to happen.
"Prime example, BP and DuPont are sitting on the tech to make Butanol, a 1:1 replacement for gasoline"
When butanol is burned to extract energy, carbon dioxide is produced, only adding to the problem, not solving it. And by the way, there is nothing "minimally polluting" about the technology that goes into making batteries.
Nothing other than a ticket to La La Land. You only demonstrate how easy it is to say "creating an explosion of sustainable technologies" and putting "an end to business as usual", rather than actually doing it. The inertia in the system is so large, its not even clear if its possible.
Given the rate of uptake of solar technology relative to the increased output of carbon dioxide means doomsday for humanity is certainly within the next 200-400 years. Keep in mind that in just 75 years it will be over 100F in Kansas City for more than 100 days out of the year based on current trends. In 150 years, it will be impossible to park your car outside in Houston on an average summer day as the tires will melt.
You obviously have no idea of just how hotter its going to get or how much environmental degradation must occur to insure that each person in China and India gets their own car to drive while they talk on their iPhone.
Population will of course not grow exponentially indefinitely. Unfortunately, it appears that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will at least until humans go finally extinct probably somewhere between 2200-2500.
If those "fuels" result in increased carbon dioxide, we are doomed. As a biologist for the past 45 years, I have been watching this coming for the past 30 years. This article and its conclusions are not new. It's just the inescapable conclusion is beginning to sink home to the less scientifically literate in the press. One can only reach the depressing, but seemingly inescapable conclusion that the momentum behind the exponential increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the positive feedback loops that are now starting to kick in to accelerate the warming, simply won't give our best technology enough time to work.
"it will hit the poorer nations first and hardest."
This is a common falsehood. Those living the "good life" will see the most change, because they have been up until now the most insulated. It seems ironic and yet in some ways fitting that Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma will be like the canaries in the coal mine among US states. Soon West Texas and Oklahoma will be ripe for large billboards along the highways with big pictures of James Inhofe reading "Let's make it hotter and drier".
The availability of raw materials is hardly the issue. The problem is maintaining ecosystems within their natural capacity to reproduce. Humans are destroying that. We are pushing temperatures beyond tolerable limits for many species, we are diverting and altering local and regional hydrology where too many plants and animals no longer have sufficient water to sustain themselves. Humans are destroying forests and other habitats that provide shelter for animals and plants, in many cases exposing them to natural and invasive predators and disease. The present trend is not sustainable and given the amount of carbon dioxide now either already in the atmosphere or are being presently added to it, global warming will almost certainly cause the vast majority of organisms to begin to brush up against their physiological limits within our children's lifetimes.
The notion that we should not "limit the potential of our children based upon the "archaic" limitations that we face today flies in the face of what we know about how biology and evolution works. Our limits are very much inherited and yes in some ways we can manipulate our environment and "extend" our capacity to venture into environments that exceed our natural capacity to a limited degree. However, the notion that we can disregard the laws of physics or natural selection is not only absurd, it is literally asking for extinction. Just go into any grocery store shopping and look at what you purchase and ask yourself, could I survive if our natural world changed into one in which these various plant or animal products couldn't grow? Sadly, most humans have such a poor understanding of biology that it is increasingly most unlikely that humans will survive as a species in a few hundred years.
School administrators rarely get the 6 and 7 figure salaries that CEO's from corporate testing and educational companies do, nor do they have the lobbying and PR staff that is at the disposal of the CEO's. Take the 6 and 7 figure incomes out of the education business and you will see education improve dramatically.
"That we are not at 100% does not matter. That we may never reach 100% also does not matter."
Sadly, the history of environmental destruction on planet earth tells us that you couldn't be more wrong. What the 99.9999999% don't know or haven't been taught has very significant consequences for all. Yes, it is true as Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler proved, it only takes one or two bad apples to cause a lot of destruction, but even they don't hold a candle to the kind of thoughtless cumulative destruction that can be created by the aggregation of 6.8 billion people doing just "slightly destructive" things to the planet for lack of education.
"The biggest problem with our education system is almost certainly how top-heavy the funding is."
To a large extent true, when you consider the testing corporations and others selling "education for a profit" are eager to assure that it is their lobbyists that write the legislation that determines the "standards". This con-game is bankrupting us.
Slashdot Mirror
We have not mitigated the acid rain problem. It may be marginally lower in various US locals, but globally acid rain is still on the rise, particularly over the Pacific where much of the acid rain from India and China is deposited every day leading, along with carbon dioxide acidification, of marine waters. Considering that a pH drop of just 0.2 in the world oceans would probably eliminate the source of 50% of all human protein humans are presently consuming, its a very big UNSOLVED problem.
"Maybe we should do something about it."
Perhaps the understatement of the century.
You fail to account for the inertia already built into the system. There is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has been for 800,000 years. We now know that carbon dioxide increases ended the last ice age, just moving from about 240 ppm to 340 ppm over a 5-10 million year period. Humans have moved carbon dioxide from 340 to 400 in just 100 years and it will likely reach 500 in the next 20-50 years even given our best efforts to stop it. Above 500 we will see heat probably too great for all but the most hardy and desiccation resistant plants to grow. Soil temperatures will simply cook the roots of most plants.
If you don't think we have a problem, just think about the fact that temperatures this May in Greenland have hit 76.6 F and summer is just getting started.
Global warming will not cause much higher food yields as less rather than more land will be arable, for lack of water over the interior of most continents. Botantists looking into to this already are predicting that about 80 percent of all plant biotomes will change dramatically over the next 100 years. Most forests will become grasslands and most grasslands, deserts. Arctic soils are too poor to support most food crops and they are not adapted to surviving without sunlight for much of the year.
You clearly underestimate just how hot its going to get once all the methane in Arctic permafrost gets released along with the marine methane clathrates. If the Permian extinction event tells us anything, its that very little will survive beyond bacteria and some plant life. If higher eucaryotes make it, it will likely be some insects.
I guess you are the last in your family line.
Rest assured, when if gets too hot, there won't be any victors.
The 90% at the bottom could have 3x as many babies and probably given their poverty together come nowhere near consuming as many resources and creating as much pollution as the upper 10%.
Changes to planet earth and its biosphere happen on scales of millions of years as well as microseconds. It has always been that way. The important thing to keep focused on is what kinds of changes and in what cumulative direction. A more apt analogy would be to think of humanity as riding a train doing about 30-40 mph suddenly discovering that the bridge a few miles down the track is too weak to support the weight of the train. Some will try desperately to hit the brakes, some will rush to the rear of the train, some will jump off the train, others will remain comfortably seated in the dining car finishing their 7th helping of pie complaining that the train is slowing down to fast for them to enjoy their meal, and the guy on his 17th helping of pie is too busy to even notice what's about to happen.
Unfortunately, in this case they are right and indignation and moralizing is pointless.
"Are you against barter as well? "
Barter won't work well if its too hot and dry to grow food in the first place.
"Prime example, BP and DuPont are sitting on the tech to make Butanol, a 1:1 replacement for gasoline"
When butanol is burned to extract energy, carbon dioxide is produced, only adding to the problem, not solving it. And by the way, there is nothing "minimally polluting" about the technology that goes into making batteries.
Nothing other than a ticket to La La Land. You only demonstrate how easy it is to say "creating an explosion of sustainable technologies" and putting "an end to business as usual", rather than actually doing it. The inertia in the system is so large, its not even clear if its possible.
Given the rate of uptake of solar technology relative to the increased output of carbon dioxide means doomsday for humanity is certainly within the next 200-400 years. Keep in mind that in just 75 years it will be over 100F in Kansas City for more than 100 days out of the year based on current trends. In 150 years, it will be impossible to park your car outside in Houston on an average summer day as the tires will melt.
You obviously have no idea of just how hotter its going to get or how much environmental degradation must occur to insure that each person in China and India gets their own car to drive while they talk on their iPhone.
"over population is a myth"
If you believe that, I suggest you open your home to several million Chinese and Indians who would love to invite themselves over to your house.
"My point is in short, that while there's no evidence of hitting our natural boundaries any time soon,"
Tell that to the several million Brazilians who just lost this years crop to drought.
Population will of course not grow exponentially indefinitely. Unfortunately, it appears that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will at least until humans go finally extinct probably somewhere between 2200-2500.
If those "fuels" result in increased carbon dioxide, we are doomed. As a biologist for the past 45 years, I have been watching this coming for the past 30 years. This article and its conclusions are not new. It's just the inescapable conclusion is beginning to sink home to the less scientifically literate in the press.
One can only reach the depressing, but seemingly inescapable conclusion that the momentum behind the exponential increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the positive feedback loops that are now starting to kick in to accelerate the warming, simply won't give our best technology enough time to work.
"it will hit the poorer nations first and hardest."
This is a common falsehood. Those living the "good life" will see the most change, because they have been up until now the most insulated. It seems ironic and yet in some ways fitting that Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma will be like the canaries in the coal mine among US states. Soon West Texas and Oklahoma will be ripe for large billboards along the highways with big pictures of James Inhofe reading "Let's make it hotter and drier".
The availability of raw materials is hardly the issue. The problem is maintaining ecosystems within their natural capacity to reproduce. Humans are destroying that. We are pushing temperatures beyond tolerable limits for many species, we are diverting and altering local and regional hydrology where too many plants and animals no longer have sufficient water to sustain themselves. Humans are destroying forests and other habitats that provide shelter for animals and plants, in many cases exposing them to natural and invasive predators and disease. The present trend is not sustainable and given the amount of carbon dioxide now either already in the atmosphere or are being presently added to it, global warming will almost certainly cause the vast majority of organisms to begin to brush up against their physiological limits within our children's lifetimes.
The notion that we should not "limit the potential of our children based upon the "archaic" limitations that we face today flies in the face of what we know about how biology and evolution works. Our limits are very much inherited and yes in some ways we can manipulate our environment and "extend" our capacity to venture into environments that exceed our natural capacity to a limited degree. However, the notion that we can disregard the laws of physics or natural selection is not only absurd, it is literally asking for extinction. Just go into any grocery store shopping and look at what you purchase and ask yourself, could I survive if our natural world changed into one in which these various plant or animal products couldn't grow? Sadly, most humans have such a poor understanding of biology that it is increasingly most unlikely that humans will survive as a species in a few hundred years.
"This children are doomed to fail by the environment they are subjected to from birth."
Translation: their fellow citizens.
"the over-paid administration."
School administrators rarely get the 6 and 7 figure salaries that CEO's from corporate testing and educational companies do, nor do they have the lobbying and PR staff that is at the disposal of the CEO's. Take the 6 and 7 figure incomes out of the education business and you will see education improve dramatically.
"That we are not at 100% does not matter. That we may never reach 100% also does not matter."
Sadly, the history of environmental destruction on planet earth tells us that you couldn't be more wrong. What the 99.9999999% don't know or haven't been taught has very significant consequences for all. Yes, it is true as Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler proved, it only takes one or two bad apples to cause a lot of destruction, but even they don't hold a candle to the kind of thoughtless cumulative destruction that can be created by the aggregation of 6.8 billion people doing just "slightly destructive" things to the planet for lack of education.
Yes, but it sure makes it easy for Fox to attract viewers.
"The biggest problem with our education system is almost certainly how top-heavy the funding is."
To a large extent true, when you consider the testing corporations and others selling "education for a profit" are eager to assure that it is their lobbyists that write the legislation that determines the "standards". This con-game is bankrupting us.