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#1 2007-03-11 00:31:15

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi everyone, Tom.
Tom's post (quoted below) was off topic so I am creating a new thread here to discuss it.  I encourage people to remain on topic and make new threads as needed as it makes it much easier to find the information in the forums.  Anyway, here is Tom's post with my comments:

The Liberals say we have only 10 years to deal with the problem, that means we can't channel our efforts into developing Fusion power to combat the Greenhouse Effect. The liberals would like us to make immediate sacrifices and reduce our standard of living now, I say, no!

Ok, there are a whole bunch of assumptions and opinions stated as fact that I disagree with here.

The group "The Liberals" is not defined.  Furthermore this sort of blanket statement calls for references.  I have not seen any reputable source say we have only 10 years to fix this problem, altho small changes now have longer to work than crash changes at the last minute.

Nor do I see any reason why "The Liberals" wish to prevent development of Fusion.

It seems to me that current energy interests (currently earning trillions of dollars each year) have far more interest in preventing the development of fusion power the same way that Magnetohydrodynamics (now called Magnetoplasmadynamics) was.  For more information on MHD and why it was prevented from being developed by current energy interests read the essays in "Power" edited by Bruce Stirling.

Even if we assume with out a shred of evidence that "The Liberals" are against Fusion power you do not explain why we can not have fusion research AND cleaner power.  The current amount of money for fusion is tiny.  It could be increased 10 fold with out changing any of the 3 significant figures of the US budget.  Fusion research is obviously not a priority with the current administration.  (Or of any recent US administration admittedly.  Then again, how many of our US readers have written letters to their officials demanding more money get put into this area?)

Finally it is a propaganda myth that being more carbon aware will reduce the standard of living.  For example, the USA can not sell cars to China (a vast market which has too many US dollars for my liking).  The reason: American cars produce too many pollutants (particularilly carbon emmisions) per km traveled.  US cars can not be sold in a lot of international markets because they are too dirty!  In this case, making American technology cleaner would increase the ballance of trade and create US wealth.

Modern technology is often cleaner and easier to sell to world wide markets where people take the environment much more seriously.

I think coal has tremendous potential to replace oil, it emits more CO2 however, but it can replace oil.

Coal is the DIRTIEST form of power on the planet.  ... Actually, I will devote a whole post to coal rather than shoving it in here. 

My immediate concern is buying oil from terrorist sponsors or providing them an oil market from which they can readily raise money for their terrorist operations. My immediate concern is to find something my car can run on that provides no revenue for Middle-Eastern countries. The US has the largest reserve of coal in the World, so naturally I'd look to that source, people concerned with the Greenhouse effect would say no and that I should ride around in crappy little put put cars that can barely make it up the hill, so I can get excellent gas milage from petroleum derived fuel, or they say I should walk, or take a bicycle or rely on mass transit and live in a densely packed city.

Crappy little putt-putt cars like this one? Tesla Roadster.

Altho I agree with you that the political decision to stick closely with House Saud is moronic as far as the USA's long term intrests goes.  By the way, which president put up solar collectors on top of the White House and which president took them down again?

Usually the rule for climate change is gradualism, not catastrophism, so crash programs and belt-tightening are neigther needed or wanted.

That is an interesting statement given that what planetologists have been discovering from interplanetary probes is that climate is not gradualistic.  Basically our climate is a chaotic system and it is very hard to predict what a small change will do and when we will reach a tipping point.

One example: Milankovich calculated that variations in Earth's orbit would change the amount of sunlight reaching Earth in cycles of ~19,000 - ~23,000, ~41,000 and ~100,000 years.  For some time they were not taken very seriously as the change in Solar insolation was less than 1%.  However as we got better data on the ice ages, we found that they matched very well to the Milankovich cycles.

See "World Building" by Dr. Stephan L. Gillett or "Moon & Planets 3rd Ed" by William K. Hartmann for more details on Milankovich variations.

Finally, I am a libertarian, a rationalist and a Canadian.

Warm regards, Rick.

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#2 2007-03-11 02:25:00

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Coal is easily the dirtiest form of energy production on the planet.  A single 1,000 Megawatt coal plant releases approximately 600 pounds of carbon dioxide and 30 pounds of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each SECOND.

In one second it releases as much nitrogen oxides as 200,000 automobiles.  These polutants are estimated to cause 25 premature fatalities and 60,000 cases of respiratory complaints per year / power plant.

Additionally, this plant has to get rid of 30,000 truckloads of ash annually.  (This amount would cover a square mile 60 feet deep.)  The ash is full of carcinogens, highly acidic (or sometimes highly alkaline depending on the type of coal).

Run off from these dumps have sterilized streams and devistated communities.

Coal is a very dirty form of energy.  All sorts of stuff is mixed up with it.  I quote:

In short, naturally occurring radioactive species released by coal combustion are accumulating in the environment along with minerals such as mercury, arsenic, silicon, calcium, chlorine, and lead, sodium, as well as metals such as aluminum, iron, lead, magnesium, titanium, boron, chromium, and others that are continually dispersed in millions of tons of coal combustion by-products. The potential benefits and threats of these released materials will someday be of such significance that they should not now be ignored.--Alex Gabbard of the Metals and Ceramics Division

Furthermore the acid rain from the sulfur and nitric oxides damages the health of forests, sterilizes lakes and leaches heavy metals into the environment.  (When Canada complained about the acid rain that was sterilzing lakes in Ontario, the USA basically told us to take a hike.  In many ways the USA is not a very likable, social or fair neighbour.)

Finally, coal contains trace amounts of Uranium, Thorium and other radioactive elements.  (Usually at least 2 to 3 parts per million, tho it ranges from 1 to 10 ppm.)  A 1,000 MWatt coal plant produces 100 times MORE radioactivity than a equally powerful nuclear plant and it scatters the nuclear waste widely into the biosphere.  If people were rationally concerned with radioactive wastes they would start by closing down coal plants.

(In fact, the uranium released by a coal burning plant has more energy in it than the energy got by burning the coal!)


For more information see:

// A site that discusses the radiation releases from coal plants
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev … lmain.html


// A discussion (With lots of references!) talking about nuclear power.  It points out that there is a double standard between coal radioactivity and nuclear radioactivity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

An essay in: "Catastrophes, Chaos & Convolutions" by James P. Hogan page 182.  Much of the data on conventional wastes by coal burning plants.

// Website about acid rain.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/acidrain/

// More on acid rain
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-75-584/sci … acid_rain/

J. O. Corbett, "The Radiation Dose From Coal Burning: A Review of Pathways and Data," Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 4 (1): 5-19.

T. L. Thoem, et al., Coal Fired Power Plant Trace Element Study, Volume 1: A Three Station Comparison, Radian Corp. for USEPA, Sept. 1975.

W. Torrey, "Coal Ash Utilization: Fly Ash, Bottom Ash and Slag," Pollution Technology Review, 48 (1978) 136.

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#3 2007-03-11 03:31:33

John Creighton
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2001-09-04
Posts: 2,401
Website

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Clean coal is by farm the most important thing we can do for our environment in the short term because china and India are going to start burning a lot of coal very soon.


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#4 2007-03-11 03:47:44

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi John,
I would welcome references to how many tonnes of carbon dioxide, sufides, nitrates, heavy metals, fly ash, bottom ash, radioactivity and slag a "clean coal" plant produces each year.

If you give references to what you say, people will take you more seriously.  "Clean coal" to me is an oxymoron.  It sounds like a slogan invented by the publicity department of some coal burning power company.

Also your argument is logically flawed.  If China and India are going to start burning coal that does not mean that we should.  "If all your friends / aquaintences / enemies jumped off a cliff, should you?" smile  They are trying to rapidly industrialize and are using very fast & dirty ways to do it.  We live in a wealthy society and have more choices. 

What is more, ethically we are not in a very good position to call foul on them.  We used plenty of coal and other dirty power to get our industrial revolution off the ground.  Power density equals wealth.  Do we say to them, "you can't industrialize, so sorry, you have to stay poor?"

Warm regards, Rick

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#5 2007-03-11 09:05:50

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Is Global Warming real?

That is an interesting statement given that what planetologists have been discovering from interplanetary probes is that climate is not gradualistic.  Basically our climate is a chaotic system and it is very hard to predict what a small change will do and when we will reach a tipping point.

All the more reason we should not make our plans based on the assumption that the World Climate will reach a tipping point in 10 years unless we make some dramatic and extreme measures to reduce our carbot output now.

We don't know for certain that the climate will reach a tipping point in 10 years, and there are no new technologies we can use now, the only thing we can do now is make economic sacrifices and plunge the World into a Depression, that will reduce our carbon output, but will never know if such measures were needed if implemented. If the dire predictions don't happen after we've implemented these harsh economic measure, the authors of those measures could say, "See they work." But what if drastic climate change was not in the cards in 10 years no matter what we do, then those sacrifices become meaningless and pointless.

Now for me, my preferences are for technological development, not carbon emmision regulations that are to be implemented now or by any date certain. If we find an alternative to coal and oil, then that alternative should make sense for individuals to switch to rather than having those alternative forced on the public when better ones may show up later.

If I mention Fusion power to those liberals, I get the old mantra, "Fusion power was 50 years away 50 years ago and 50 years away today." All that really means to me is that we are not very good at predicting when fusion power will arrive, not that it isn't a worthy goal to pursue. Fusion like fission power doesn't produce carbon emmisions, however fusion power doesn't leave nuclear bomb grade material behind as one of its waste products. Liberals have become supportive of fission reseach lately ever since Iran started developing it. Before some dangerous despot might get his hand on a nuke and start giving it to terrorists, the liberals have always been for "no nukes".

Back to subject: Fusion power might be 20 years away or it might be 50, alot of that depends on how much effort we put into it and which technologies we investigate first. Eventually though, in the fullness of time if we don't give up, we will have fusion power. I believe in addition the scales of time for fusion development are much shorter than the scales of time required for global climate change. I think it would be worth while and less costly to develop those technologies that can replace oil and not make regulations that cause unnecessary hardship, that to implement some crash program that forces technologies on people at great cost, things like new gasoline taxes for instance. I believe we can wait for the supply of oil to drive up prices on their own accord rather than the government artificially jacking up the price of gasoline with new taxes and then pocketing the money they collected to be spent wastefully on their own pork barrel projects. The Arabs waste enough of our petrodollars as it is, we don't need the US Government getting in on that act as well. It is also funny that the same politicians that talk about getting us out of the Iraq war also talk about raising our taxes, whatever happened to the peace dividend?

I think our best policy is technology development, not energy price regulation or taxation. $3 per gallon for gasoline is high enough, its not my problem that European willing decide to pay $7 per gallon due to their own self-taxation and willingly give that revenue to their own wasteful governments.

I think if global warming hits us, it can always be followed by global cooling after we develope fusion power.

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#6 2007-03-11 17:50:33

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: Is Global Warming real?

What makes you so sure that sustained, controlled fusion is even possible--not to mention feasible as a source of domestic electricity--here on Earth? Think how much easier the drilling of deep-well geothermal sources might be with today's know-how redesigned to reach depths of 10 miles (where temperatures adequate to produce super-heated steam are said to be available) anywhere you want on the planet ... to provide the same end result as your hypothetical fusion plant: electricity from steam driven turbo-generators.

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#7 2007-03-11 20:38:22

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi Dicktice,
  There are problems with Geothermal power as well.  A geothermal reactor on the border of France - Switzerland injected high pressure water into the rocks which caused earth quakes damaging a small town across the border in Switzerland.  The company owning the reactor is being sued for damages and endangerment because it turns out that scientists advised the plant owners that the geothermal reactor might cause earthquakes.  (They ignored this warning hoping that any earthquakes would be too small, so they are likely liable.)

  Anyway the whole project is likely going to be canned permanently.  Yes it is clean power, but sadly, it knocks down buildings & might kill people.

  I saved the newspaper clipping, but I can't find it right now.  I'll edit this post & give more details when it turns up.

  The excitement over fusion is simply it is orders of magnitude more concentrated energy than anything except fission, it produces few radioactive wastes and it burns deuterium found in water.

In "New Destinies Volume IX" pg 273 S. M. Stirling writes an essay called "Fusion" which draws the conclusion (based on historical analogies) that the wealth and freedoms a population enjoys is based on how concentrated their power sources are.

That is what excites people about fusion.  With enough power we can crack water for a hydrogen economy, blast chemical toxic wastes into elemental forms and vastly improve our standard of living in a myriad of ways.  Fusion (if it works) is a quantum step forward in humanities net wealth.

EDIT: After learning more I take back what I say about the hydrogen economy.  It is a myth.  You may wish to read, "Energy Victory" by Robert Zubrin.

As for me, I think that we could have fusion.  With the steadily declining funding for it, we are not likely to find out soon, tho.

EDIT: More information on Fusion.  Progress in Fusion research is measured by the the Lawson Parameter.  In 1960 the Lawson Parameter was ~1E16 m^3s keV (cubic meter seconds kilo electron volts).  Currently we are about 1.5E21 m^3s keV and have sat there for the last 7 years because the current generation of new reactors have had their funding cut.  A deuterium - tritium plasma with a Lawson parameter of 4E21m^3s keV will reach ignition and we will have fusion power.

Let me be clear here.  Since 1960 we have increased the value of the Lawson parameter 10,000 times.  A final tripling of it is all we need for fusion power.  This will certainly be reached if the next generation of fusion reactors are build but their funding was cut some 6 years ago.  Fusion will generate a gigantic amount of wealth and provide freedom from OPEC.  Strangely, on the very edge of success, the budget for fusion has been cut to less than $250M in the USA.

See "Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization" by Dr. Robert Zubrin page 84 to 90, and "Fusion: An Energy Option for the Future" by EFDA (the European Fusion Community) and is available for free from their website.

Warm regards, Rick.

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#8 2007-03-11 22:15:28

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Is Global Warming real?

What makes you so sure that sustained, controlled fusion is even possible--not to mention feasible as a source of domestic electricity--here on Earth? Think how much easier the drilling of deep-well geothermal sources might be with today's know-how redesigned to reach depths of 10 miles (where temperatures adequate to produce super-heated steam are said to be available) anywhere you want on the planet ... to provide the same end result as your hypothetical fusion plant: electricity from steam driven turbo-generators.

The fact that the Sun's core doesn't implode and cause the Sun to explode leads me to believe that Fusion is possible.

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#9 2007-03-11 22:22:23

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi Dicktice,
  There are problems with Geothermal power as well.  A geothemal reactor on the border of France - Switzerland injected high pressure water into the rocks which caused earth quakes damaging a small town across the border in Switzerland.  The company owning the reactor is being sued for damages and endangerment because it turns out that scientists adviced the plant owners that the geothermal reactor might cause earthquakes.  (They ignored this warning hoping that any earthquakes would be too small, so they are likely liable.)

  Anyway the whole project is likely going to be canned perminantly.  Yes it is clean power, but sadly, it knocks down buildings & might kill people.

  I saved the newspaper clipping, but I can't find it right now.  I'll edit this post & give more details when it turns up.

  The excitement over fusion is simply it is orders of magnitude more concentrated energy than anything except fission, it produces few radiaoactive wastes and it burns deuterium found in water.

In "New Destinies Volume IX" pg 273 S. M. Stirling writes an essay called "Fusion" which draws the conclusion (based on historical anologies) that the wealth and freedoms a population enjoys is based on how concentrated their power sources are.

That is what excites people about fusion.  With enough power we can crack water for a hydrogen economy, blast chemical toxic wastes into elemental forms and vastly improve our standard of living in a myriad of ways.  Fusion (if it works) is a quantum step forward in humanities net wealth.

As for me, I think that we could have fusion.  With the steadily declining funding for it, we are not likely to find out soon, tho.

Warm regards, Rick.

I think compared to the amount of time it takes for the Global climate to change, practical controlled fusion should occur "soon". If we achieve controlled fusion in the next 100 years, that should be soon enough to halt and reverse global warming, if humanity's output of carbon dioxide is what's causing it.

I think though that many Canadians might come to regret it if ever we succeeded in reversing global warming. The Little Ice Age that started in the Middle ages, might have been the beginnings of a real ice age, that out CO2 emmisions put a stop too. Canada might not be a pleasant place to live if the glaciers started advancing again. If not for the little ice age, we might all be speaking Norse at this time. The Viking colony in Greenland failed because of this little Ice Age.

Oh by the way, I voted that it is a problem for the great grand kids. I'd rather be spending the money finding a substitute for middle east oil. My solution might include a tariff on imported oil with a possible exception made for Canada, rather than a gasoline taxe at the pump. I see no reason why we should be punishing domestic producers of oil when they help make us less dependent on Middle East Oil. I think Canada has behaved rather well compared to other countries such as Mexico, it has not nationalized all its oil assets or created a National Oil company which it favors, it has allowed competion and free markets to govern the extraction of oil from its territory, Mexico has not. Another source of gasoline is coal. Carbon sequestration, can take care of the CO2 emmisions problem, gasoline, Diesel, and even motor oil can by synthesized from a base stock of coal. People are overly concerned with the CO2 problem, I have to ask, would they rather we'd clear cut the forests so we can grow corn for the production of ethenol, I wonder which is more harmful to the environment? If we mine for coal, most of the forests can remain as they are, and if there is a green house effect from this, it is a slow sort of thing. Coal is a temporary stop gap until we develop practical cleaner forms of energy such as Fusion or Solar Power, as these energy sources are not yet ready for prime time, Coal will do for now. The News Media has put too much alarm in the Global Warming phenominon, I think they hyped it up because they want immediate government response and they want us to act without thinking. Raising taxes has serious economic consequences, and governments will tend to waste the extra revenue the get from this mostly, they don't have the economic instinct to maximize their returns on spending. An Asteroid is a different matter, if it is on a collision course with Earth, we know then what has to be done, but the Earth's climate is a complex phenominon, their are many variables and predicting where is going to be is not as easy as prediction the location of an asteroid sometime in the future.

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#10 2007-03-11 22:41:06

John Creighton
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2001-09-04
Posts: 2,401
Website

Re: Is Global Warming real?

I think compared to the amount of time it takes for the Global climate to change, practical controlled fusion should occur "soon". If we achieve controlled fusion in the next 100 years, that should be soon enough to halt and reverse global warming, if humanity's output of carbon dioxide is what's causing it.

I think though that many Canadians might come to regret it if ever we succeeded in reversing global warming. The Little Ice Age that started in the Middle ages, might have been the beginnings of a real ice age, that out CO2 emmisions put a stop too. Canada might not be a pleasant place to live if the glaciers started advancing again. If not for the little ice age, we might all be speaking Norse at this time. The Viking colony in Greenland failed because of this little Ice Age.

Oh by the way, I voted that it is a problem for the great grand kids. I'd rather be spending the money finding a substitute for middle east oil. My solution might include a tariff on imported oil with a possible exception made for Canada, rather than a gasoline taxe at the pump. I see no reason why we should be punishing domestic producers of oil when they help make us less dependent on Middle East Oil. I think Canada has behaved rather well compared to other countries such as Mexico, it has not nationalized all its oil assets or created a National Oil company which it favors, it has allowed competion and free markets to govern the extraction of oil from its territory, Mexico has not. Another source of gasoline is coal. Carbon sequestration, can take care of the CO2 emmisions problem, gasoline, Diesel, and even motor oil can by synthesized from a base stock of coal. People are overly concerned with the CO2 problem, I have to ask, would they rather we'd clear cut the forests so we can grow corn for the production of ethenol, I wonder which is more harmful to the environment? If we mine for coal, most of the forests can remain as they are, and if there is a green house effect from this, it is a slow sort of thing. Coal is a temporary stop gap until we develop practical cleaner forms of energy such as Fusion or Solar Power, as these energy sources are not yet ready for prime time, Coal will do for now. The News Media has put too much alarm in the Global Warming phenominon, I think they hyped it up because they want immediate government response and they want us to act without thinking. Raising taxes has serious economic consequences, and governments will tend to waste the extra revenue the get from this mostly, they don't have the economic instinct to maximize their returns on spending. An Asteroid is a different matter, if it is on a collision course with Earth, we know then what has to be done, but the Earth's climate is a complex phenominon, their are many variables and predicting where is going to be is not as easy as prediction the location of an asteroid sometime in the future.

I agree. Global warming is awsome  big_smile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMliLih1 … ed&search=


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#11 2007-03-11 22:44:49

John Creighton
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2001-09-04
Posts: 2,401
Website

Re: Is Global Warming real?

For whoever voted for the last choice on the pole would you like to do a calculation on how long it would take for the Greenland ice cap to melt if all the power from the sun when into melting the ice in Greenland? I havn’t done it yet, I think it would be fun.  smile


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#12 2007-03-11 22:47:54

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

I think compared to the amount of time it takes for the Global climate to change, practical controlled fusion should occur "soon". If we achieve controlled fusion in the next 100 years, that should be soon enough to halt and reverse global warming, if humanity's output of carbon dioxide is what's causing it.

Hi Tom,
  I am busy researching a long post which speaks to some of the points you make so I won't go into them here.  I would be less concerned about global warming if political leaders were pushing the development of non-fossil fuel technologies, but they are not.  Also, do you have any numbers on how long it takes for Earth to remove (say) 100 ppm of CO2 out of the air?  These would be very important numbers.  I have them if you don't. (Wait for my next post for more details.)

I think though that many Canadians might come to regret it if ever we succeeded in reversing global warming. The Little Ice Age that started in the Middle ages, might have been the beginnings of a real ice age, that out CO2 emmisions put a stop too. Canada might not be a pleasant place to live if the glaciers started advancing again. If not for the little ice age, we might all be speaking Norse at this time. The Viking colony in Greenland failed because of this little Ice Age.

The Little Ice Age is certainly not news to me. 

In a government poll last year the top concern of a huge number of Canadians was climate change.  This so shocked the government it went from totally saying that climate change was nonsense to saying climate change is their 'top priority' (but still doing very little about it).  So lots of Canadians will be smacking their heads if all the melting glaciers reverse themselves and giant ice sheets start forming over our melting permafrost.

In any case we are still in an ice age (there is perminant ice at both poles).  The point is that our world is used to the status quo.  The people are where there is rainfall and soil and any change is going to cause huge disrubtions and misery; it will cause wars and famines.  Those are awfully high stakes to dismiss with an "Oh, magical fusion will solve things."

If you think that the chances of fusion appearing are inevitable, then think about how well fission power has done.  Or an even better example: think of how the clean and awesomely efficient magnetohydrodynamics (now magnetoplasmadynamics) power plants have done in the world energy market.

Anyway this is just a quick post to say that I am working on a long reply to your earlier post but it likely will be a few days tracking down the references to support my arguments.

Warm regards, Rick.

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#13 2007-03-12 00:47:22

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi all,
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is perhaps the premier body for American Scientists.  What do they say on Climate Change?  I quote:

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes*

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

References and Notes

   1. A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June 2003, A1.
   2. S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies, Climate Policy 2 (1), 3 (2003).
   3. See www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm.
   4. J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001).
   5. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001).
   6. American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84, 508 (2003).
   7. American Geophysical Union, Eos 84 (51), 574 (2003).
   8. See www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html.
   9. The first year for which the database consistently published abstracts was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although the authors had put "climate change" in their key words, the paper was not about climate change.
  10. This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial Lecture, "Consensus in science: How do we know we're not wrong," presented at the AAAS meeting on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to AAAS and the History of Science Society for their support of this lectureship; to my research assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D. C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming, M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R. C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.

      10.1126/science.1103618

The author is in the Department of History and Science Studies Program, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. E-mail: noreskes@ucsd.edu


So the AAAS says that scientists a) working in the field and b) not working for oil companies, are pretty much unanimously agreeing, that the Earth is heating up and human actions are almost certainly driving climate changes.   But they are just the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  We will dig deeper.


The origional document is here in case you wish to check out their links and other science news.  (China today has started spending a huge amount on science infrastructure with little fanfare.  Good for them!)

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/f … /5702/1686

Warm regards, Rick.

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#14 2007-03-12 01:23:36

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi everyone,
  If you ask 100 random people on the street who would you rather trust, a bunch of scientists or the politicians.  Well, obviously people will say they trust the politicians.  (Scientists can't lock you up forever with no civil rights after all...)

  So let us go to the government website for information on climate change.  I quote:

Climate Change - Science:  State of Knowledge

As with any field of scientific study, there are uncertainties associated with the science of climate change. This does not imply that scientists do not have confidence in many aspects of climate science. Some aspects of the science are known with virtual certainty(1), because they are based on well-known physical laws and documented trends. Current understanding of many other aspects of climate change ranges from “likely” to “uncertain.”


What's Known
---------------------
Scientists know with virtual certainty that:

    * Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.

    * The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.

    * A warming trend of about 0.7 to 1.5°F occurred during the 20th century. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans (NRC, 2001).

    * The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.

    * Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.


What's Likely?
---------------------
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" (IPCC, 2001). In short, a number of scientific analyses indicate, but cannot prove, that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to climate change (as theory predicts). In the coming decades, scientists anticipate that as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise, average global temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise as a result and precipitation patterns will change.


What's Not Certain?
-----------------------------
Important scientific questions remain about how much warming will occur, how fast it will occur, and how the warming will affect the rest of the climate system including precipitation patterns and storms. Answering these questions will require advances in scientific knowledge in a number of areas:

    * Improving understanding of natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, land-use changes, the warming or cooling effects of pollutant aerosols, and the impacts of changing humidity and cloud cover.

    * Determining the relative contribution to climate change of human activities and natural causes.

    * Projecting future greenhouse emissions and how the climate system will respond within a narrow range.

    * Improving understanding of the potential for rapid or abrupt climate change.

Addressing these and other areas of scientific uncertainty is a major priority of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). The CCSP is developing twenty-one Synthesis and Assessment products to advance scientific understanding of these uncertainty areas by the end of 2008. More information.


References
    * IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.Exit EPA Disclaimer Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton, J.T., Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell, and C.A. Johnson (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 881pp.

    * National Research Council (NRC), 2001. Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions.Exit EPA Disclaimer National Academy Press, Washington, DC

(1) Throughout the science section of this Web site, use of "virtual certainty" (or virtually certain) conveys a greater than 99% chance that a result is true. Other terms used to communicate confidence include "very likely" (90-99% chance the result is true) and "likely" (66-90% chance the result is true). These judgmental estimates originate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001).

Hrmmmph...  Well what does the Environment Protection Agency know anyway?  Someone should slash their budget or something.

If anyone wants to see the origional site and check out their links it can be found here:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/scienc … ledge.html

Warm regards, Rick.

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#15 2007-03-12 02:39:04

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi Everyone,
  Sticking with our American government agencies theme the National Research Council has written a 244 page book called:

"Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises"

which I think is actually a pretty cool title.  It costs only $44.96 as of this writing and can be ordered from this link:

http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10136#toc

However, there is a 4 page summary of the book that can be read for free from this URL:

http://www.nap.edu/html/climatechange-b … -brief.pdf

Or for those executives out there, they have a 24 page executive summary (also for free) here:

http://books.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/10136.pdf


Some people don't believe things happen in the future unless they are in science fiction first. Fear not, for I refer you to:

"Heavy Weather"  by Bruce Stirling.  This novel set in the next century.  They have a new phrase 'heavy weather' to describe the larger storms caused by global warming.  (Weather is a heat engine and with more heat you get more power in the engine.)  The story follows a group of tornado chasers thru the desert that the American Midwest has become.  (This desert is caused only partly by global warming but also because of unregulated pumping of the aquifer that is going on now.  Remember: The Biggest Pump Wins.)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse … 2926&itm=5


"Mother of Storms" by John Barnes.  In this novel a minor disaster lets loose a whole lot of methane from the thawing artic.  Methane breaks up in ~9 years in our atmosphere so there is a year or three significant increase in temperature.  This adds on to the already warmer world of the furture. 
  Now hurricanes grow when the sea water is 29.5 degrees C or warmer and shrink when the water is colder (or if they are over land).  Currently the hurricane breeding zones are small triangular patches of oceans inside the 29.5 C isotherms.  But now these patches of oceans get a lot bigger...
  This is a highly recommended book for those interested in heavy weather and big storms.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/used/p … 533453&z=y

Warm regards, Rick

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#16 2007-03-12 08:23:06

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: Is Global Warming real?

If you ask random people on the street who would you rather trust, a bunch of scientists or the politicians.  Well, obviously people will say they trust the politicians.  (Scientists can't lock you up forever with no civil rights after all...)

Ok it's my turn to make up imaginary poll results.

If you ask 100 random people on the street who would you rather trust: a bunch of politicians or the media ... well, obviously people will say they trust the media. This proves how wrong the results of a made up poll can be.


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

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#17 2007-03-12 09:52:33

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Is Global Warming real?

I just have to ask this question. I'm not saying that humans aren't causing global warming, but ...

What if they aren't and humans take measures to reverse global warming, and what if those measures work too well?

What if Earth's natural climate was in the midst of a cooling trend that human activities interupted?

What are the costs of stopping global warming in a hurry?

What are the costs of letting the Earth Warm up?

If we regulate the economy, and drive up costs of transportation, what if this causes an economic depression and throws people out of work, and what if the sacrifice being made was unnecessary?

We don't have a good alternative to fossil fuels. A good alternative would be just as cheap as fossil fuels and painless to switich to, but what if government doesn't want to wait and forces consumers to switch to more expensive alternatives by forcing up the price of gasoline and collecting a whole bunch or revenue. People who own gasoline powered cars have at first no choice but to pay the higer prices of gas that government imposes on top of OPEC. Maybe an alternative such as an ethenol powered car would now look more attractive by contrast, and people would start manufacturing and buying those cars. Farmers would have to expand their fields to grow corn for fuel in addition to what they grow for food, that means less land for forests, and wild life habitats would disappear, just as they would for certain species with global warming.

Now if Polar Bears become endangered due to the shrinking ice caps, what about the creatures of the forest whose homes disappear when the lumberjacks chop down the trees to make way for the expanded fuel farms. Aren't the clear cutting of forests equally detrimental to the environment if not more so that global warming?

We could make cars more efficient so they burn less gasoline, but as people's standard of living through out the world increases, they'll buy more cars. I think their are 1 to 2 billion car owners now, there are mover 6 billion people in the World and plenty of room for people to increase their standard of living and by more cars. Imagine a world full of middle class people who drive 6 billion cars, and lets assume the cars only consume 30% of the gasoline todays cars consume, where does this bring us? Are you going to start suggesting we have child quotas, or start forcing people to live in cities where there is mass transit? How are we going to regulate their lives so that they behave the way we want to in order to meet the requirements to reduce global warming?

My approach is to do the research and present alernatives so that people choose them of their own free will because in makes ecomonic sense to them individually. If we try to make gasoline engines artificially unattractive by taxing gasoline through the roof, this is still taxation, and a crule sort of taxation as well as it affects those with meager incomes more than the rich, who can always buy and afford carbon offsets as Al Gore does. So you have a world where the rich still fly around in their private jets while individual cars are made more unaffordable to the masses, these people will be forced to move from the countryside into the cities where there is mass transit, and the cities will become bloated and overcrowded. Those advocating those measures probably envision themselfs as one of the elite luck few who can afford the carbon offsets, rather than one of the unfortunate huddled masses who get their cars taken away from them and have to push and shove to get on the packed subways, buses and trains, and pay through the roof for living space in a crowded city.

If you force people to change their lifestyle, that is a price, if you clearcut forests for farms that is also a price, if we do nothing and global warming takes its toll that is a price also, but couldn't you imagine that better and more painless alternatives might make themselves available in the future. Fusion development partially depends on funding like you say, that funding in turn depends on the availablity of funds, and funds are going to be less available if we make ourselves poorer with regulations to combat global warming now. We don't have the information about which alternative will be less costly to us. It might make sense to wait for fusion or for more efficient solar cells that make economic sense. I think we should do the research, but not pick winners. We should provide a range of options that people may choose from freely rather than force a certain option, that might not be the best one, on them.

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#18 2007-03-12 10:35:30

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: Is Global Warming real?

All right, you guys: what makes you think Thermal-fusion Power Generation on a worldwide basis without CO2 emissions won't contribute to Global Warming, and thereby to Climate Change after all? Face it, we're bound to change the ecosphere no matter what we do, simply because there are so many of us. We're not going to reduce population growth on our own, so to avoid the grusome alternatives we have to start planning on populating the Solar System a.s.a.p.

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#19 2007-03-12 10:48:54

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Because the demand for energy is such, and if we meet that demand without adding CO2, we contribute less to global warming as CO2 is a greenhouse gas, whether the difference is significant is another matter.

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#20 2007-03-12 15:30:27

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Ok it's my turn to make up imaginary poll results.

If you ask 100 random people on the street who would you rather trust: a bunch of politicians or the media ... well, obviously people will say they trust the media. This proves how wrong the results of a made up poll can be.

Hi clclops,   lol
Touche'.  However, the point of the sarcasm in my statement was to emphise the quality of the SOURCE OF data which people are using in this 'debate'.  I was also trying to inject a little humor into an otherwise pedantic rant. 

Any comments on the results reported by the AAAS or the EPA?

Warm regards, Rick.

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#21 2007-03-12 20:22:59

RickSmith
Banned
From: Vancouver B.C.
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 244

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Hi Everyone,
  This report took a lot of hunting down to find but I have a got a web readable summary of the  IPCC Third Assessment Report: Climate Change 2001.  (They are currently working on the 4th report which is due out in 2007.  My understanding is that the 4th report is now done and is now undergoing peer review to check facts.)

  The IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was founded by the World Meteorological Organization in order to:
"...to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the best available scientific, technical & socio-economic information on climate change from around the world.  The assessments are based on information contained in peer-reviewed literature and, where appropriately documented, in industry literature and traditional practices.  They draw on the work of hundreds of experts from all regions of the world."

Anyway, the 34 page summary is at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/un/syreng/spm.pdf

Some quotes of interest to this thread:

There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.

The IPCC is saying this as well.  All the major meterological groups are saying this.  Scientific debates are dull if they ALL say the same thing...

Human activities have increased the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols since the pre-industrial era.

Note that there are no weasle words here.  No "might have increased" or "strong possibility that...".  Just "have increased".

The Earth's climate system has demonstrably changed on both global and regional scales since the pre-industrial era, with some of these changes attributable to human activities.

or

Changes in sea level, snow cover, ice extent, and precipitation are consistant with a warm climate near the Earth's surface.

or below is the title of a particularily frightening looking graph on page 17.  It shows sea level rise & CO2 levels goes on increasing & world temperature continues to rise LONG after CO2 emissions are brought under control.  So even if we magically get "Back to the Future's" 'Mr Fusion' tomorrow, things will get worse for a long time to come.

CO2 concentration, temperature, and sea level continue to rise long after emitions are reduced.

Here is something I'm worried about but which does not get the press that 5 meter rises in sea levels does...

Climate change affects environmental issues such as loss of biodiversity, desertification, stratospheric ozone depletion, freshwater avaliability and air quality and in turn climate change is affected by many of these issues.

I could quote more (or much longer examples than these headings) but I think this fairly describes the main thrust of the document.


Terraforming Mars is climate change, global warming and adding greenhouse gases in a big way so people might logically expect those of us posting on this forum to know something on the subject.  the IPCC has published two books of particular interstest to us:

"Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report"  and
"Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis"

You can track down copies from here:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/reports.htm

Or you can get printed documentation from IPCC Secretariat - World Meteorological Organizations Building
PO Box 2300 CH-1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Phone 41 22 730 8284 / 8208

Warm regards, Rick.

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#22 2007-03-13 04:36:38

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: Is Global Warming real?

This report took a lot of hunting down to find but I have a got a web readable summary of the  IPCC Third Assessment Report: Climate Change 2001.  (They are currently working on the 4th report which is due out in 2007.  My understanding is that the 4th report is now done and is now undergoing peer review to check facts.)

The IPCC 4AR Summary for Policymakers is available here

This is a highly complex and specialized matter, even this so called summary is hard to read. To give but one example of how easy it is to be completely mislead by the alarmist media, let's take your statement below:

Here is something I'm worried about but which does not get the press that 5 meter rises in sea levels does...

Check page 7 of the above report, 2nd to last paragraph:

The total 20th century rise (Global average sea level) is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m.

Now look at the scenarios in table SPM-3 on page 13 and take the most extreme case - the A1FI scenario - that estimates a yearly increase of 5.9 mm which would add up to 0.59m over the whole of the 21st Century. The press has exaggerated the rise in sea level by a factor of ten! BTW the low end of all but one of the other scenarios would fall below the maximum estimated sea level rise (0.22m) that has already occurred in the 20C without any serious global consequences.

Furthermore both the way the IPCC has summarized the science and the "science" itself have been strongly disputed. The media have failed to do their job, they are not reporting on the facts, they are distorting them.


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

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#23 2007-03-13 11:40:28

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Yes, I have noticed that. The Media seems to want the government to take over and spend billions of dollars on the problem with a "bull rush" solution, they want the government to raise taxes on gasoline increase fuel economy standards arbitrarily, and basically try to force society to make great changes at enourmous cost. A little research and technology development isn't nearly as costly as forcing changes on society and the economy through government taxation and regulation, and further technological innovations might make the transition to a carbon neutral energy source less painful, if we are simply patient and wait for technology to pan out. By pretending that "Doomsday" is just around the courner, we could really hurt the economy, it mostly provides an excuse for the government to collect extra revenue. Just look at Europe, their gas taxes are higher than ours, in theory this should spur development in more fuel efficient vehicles and alternate energy, well where is it? All I see is Europeans made poorer, driving smaller cars, and driving them less frequently. I am not interested in reducing my standard of living, I am interested in reducing my countries dependence on imported oil, especially from the Middle East, we have alot of coal and there is technology to produce automotive fuel out of it and to burn it cleanly.

Reducing CO2 emmisions is not my number 1 priority right now, my priority is to get off dependence on imported oil from the middle east, because some of that money gets siphoned off to terrorism. I think nuclear fusion reseach ought to be funded, and when it arrives, it ought to do alot to solve the global warming problem, there is no point in which its too late to reverse global warming. The Earth has experienced warmer climates than now in the past. There were periods when the Earth had no ice caps at all and the tropics covered most of the globe.

The thing to ask is which is more costly, the oceans rising half a meter over the next century, or doing something drastic to combat global warming with what we know now?

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#24 2007-03-14 10:16:47

Martian Republic
Member
From: Haltom City- Dallas/Fort Worth
Registered: 2004-06-13
Posts: 855

Re: Is Global Warming real?

Globule Warming due to human activities is a completely false or a lie, but there is a human caused pollution problem that we have to deal with. I do not deny that we have human caused pollution problem, but I am challenging this Co2 bogus claim of it being a problem. This using the Co2 as one of those so called green house gas is based on cherry picked science or lying and deliberately using falsified information to support there claim of it causing Globule Warming. There are many factors that determine temperature change on the Earth and none of them have to do with human activities. The sun will heat up and cool down a bit. There are thousand year cycle that changes the temperature on the Earth and even ten thousand and hundred thousand year cycles that change the temperature on the Earth. I don't know anybody that claiming that human activity of generating Co2 ended the Ice Age. While the Glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere are decreasing, the Glaciers in Ant Artic are increasing. You will knot, that these same people that are crying about the Glaciers in Greenland decreasing, they say absolutely nothing about the Glaciers in Ant Artic. These same people that are crying about the warming in Greenland aren't saying anything about a warming on Mars or a decrease in size of it ice cap. Like a said, they cherry pick there data to support there gloom and doom claim to push there agenda.

We have records of Co2 going back to the 1860 or 1850 time period and they show increased and decreases of the Co2 over that time period. Matter of fact, there a period in 1880 where the Co2 was a lot higher than it is right now. Even back in the 1930 or so there were higher level of Co2 than it is right now. So if we are getting a mex review of Co2 of record that we been keeping over the last 150 years or so, where did this so called information of Co2 continually increasing come from if not from meteorologist station that were set up to check for Co2. But, before I do that, it interesting to knot that the US Meteorologist Station for check Co2 in the atmosphere is located in Hawaii on the main island where there an active volcano that continually gasing and one gases is Co2 that is coming out of that volcano. But, they didn't use that data either. So what did they use to give us there so called industry is bad cry because Co2 is increasing because of industry? So industry will have to be shut down to solve this problem that there claiming exist because of industry. It came from taking ice cores from Ant-Artic, which according to them represent very low Co2 levels over the past ten thousand or so years.  Ice there is a mile or two deep in places and that ice could have been there for several thousand and even ten of thousands of years. The problem with using those ice core for there module is that Co2 is salable in water and will have a tendency to lose it Co2 over time. Ice will melt and re-freeze losing it Co2. Freezing water in laboratory experiment will not capture or hold what in the atmosphere either and includes Co2.  So any attempt to use ice core for determining what was in the air when that water turned ice will give you false conclusion. You take the record that we been keeping over the last 150 years or so and check those ice core and you can proven them to be wrong. So we can conclude that the people that are pushing this Co2 scare, have an agenda and it not in our best to jump on there ban wagon and defend there position. But, as far as a green house gas go, water is biggest offender of them all by a whole lot, but they don't say anything about that. They seem to fail to mention that fact for one reason or another or because it would defuse there claim that Co2 is causing Globule warming.

Larry,

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#25 2007-03-14 13:36:33

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Is Global Warming real?

We have records of Co2 going back to the 1860 or 1850 time period and they show increased and decreases of the Co2 over that time period. Matter of fact, there a period in 1880 where the Co2 was a lot higher than it is right now. Even back in the 1930 or so there were higher level of Co2 than it is right now.,


care to back that up with a reputable source? All graphs I've seen show quite a different picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glob … y_Type.png

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