Global warming

limerickman

And it's easy to say that because our energy requirements are so large that we're better off doing nothing about climate change.

The first step is to acknowledge that climate change is happening and that the cause of that climate change is emissions.
Unless each goverment buys in to this notion and takes action to reduce emissions, the problem of continued emissions will cause further damage.

Of course, you're correct in suggesting that energy demands will increase going foward, therefore how is that demand to met, and how can that demand be met without adding to emissions.
At present most of our energy is supplied through fossil fuels - and fossil fuels are the biggest source of greenhouse emissions.
Therefore, we have to find an alternative source other than fossil fuels.

And there are plenty of other energy sources - wind power, solar power, hydro-generated power, technologies which can convert hydrogen, are all alternative "clean" sources of energy which do not release greenhouse/carbon
emissions.

We can also address the emissions issue through legislation and fiscal methods.
The EU (+400 million people) has enacted legislation which will see emissions being required to drop by 20% in the next decade.
This legislation is tied in to fiscal measures and the establishment of a carbon trading system - where allocations of carbon are given to comapnies.
If companies exceed their emission allowance - they get taxed heavily.
Companies who do not exceed their emissions - can sell their unused allotment on the carbon trading index, to companies who may have exceeded their limits.

Therefore I disagree with the view that there isn't anything that we can do in terms of reducing our dependence upon fossil fuels.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

ellno#1

As far as this phenomenon of global warming is concerned, step can always be taken to combat the effects, it however takes political will to acomplish this.
At present the Administration of Australia and America, Prime Minister Howard and President Bush have both stated that neither will place into being anything that will hinder the economical advancement of either nation.
While that in itself makes sense, we have to face up to the fact that none of us in modern society would like to give away any of the basic necessities we have come to rely upon.
However there are steps that each of us can take to help combat this growing problem, they might only sound like pie in the sky, but if we all contribute, much can be acheived.
If each of us switched off lights that we not essential, ie:- leave the room turn off the light.
Turn of all appliances at the wall when we go to bed.
A lot of corporate buildings are festooned with so much light, they appear as Christmas Trees on the horizon.
If big business were to set a standard and lead by example the saving of power generation would be quite significant.
Instead of taking the car to the local shops, walk of ride a bicycle, therefore acomplishing two things at the same time, burning less gasoline and getting/keeping fit at the same time.
Solar Panels are becoming more efficient by the day, they work producing much more power under less light conditions, so the excuse of, they wouldn't work here as we don't get that much sun, is a complete nonsense.
Hot water is cheapest from solar, even powering the home can also be acomplished this way, how great to say no to the local power authority, when it comes to electricity be self sufficient.
We do it at sea without burning a single drop of deisel, the batteries are always full, so it can be at home as well.

Just rcently I attended an open house where the occupants had converted to solar and wind power, they had a biodigester sewage sysyem and the solid matter was used on the gardens, perfectly safe and the vegetables he grew were something to be savoured. They also reused all their grey water as irrigation, he had a veritable jungle growing, whilst his neighbours gardens were suffering the effects of water restrictions.
They had even gone so far as drinking grey water by a process of distillation without burning fuel or electricity to do this.
The device for distillation was a series of clear polycarbonate panels in the form of a metre high pyramid with a trough around the edge, and under cover, but seperate from the grey water source. The smallest amount of heat generated by the sun condenses the water vapour on the under side of the polycarbonate panels/sheets which in turn, by gravity, runs down into a stainless steel collecting tank/unit.
The family who acomplished this were just ordinary folk who wanted to set an example, the man of the house was only skilled as a home handyman, but he was driven by a dream to acheive this. He stated that all it cost him was the price of a new four wheel drive, but has saved him a veritable fortune by selling his surplus electricity back to the power company.
It goes to show that with enough will, even the little man can do much by using a small amount of foreward thinking, it is a pity that our political leaders are not gifted with the same form of common sense.

It all boils down to the fact we are held to ransom by the large oil and coal companies who don't want us to have hydrogen or electrical cars, they want to keep on using oil and fossil fuels because of the bottom line, PROFIT for sharehooders at the expense of the world's climate and the loss of species.
On this subject on species in particular, the polar bear, one of the first animals to go extinct if the ice caps diminish any more than they are at present.
There is an endless list of things we could all do the help this situation.
Firstly, we all need to become more politically active, the more of us who give our local "polly" a hard time, the more gets done for our benifit, if we do nothing we get nothing, status quo.

ndbiker

Pheonix ought to be the solar capital of the USA. The solar industry should be designing, building and marketing solar panels to the entire US from Phoenix. Pheonix would be the perfect market for plug in electrics and plug in hybrids. I am not an engineer but I would be willing to bet that the cost for solar energy in Pheonix is at least half what it would be where I live in the midwest. Geothermal heat pumps would also reduce the cost of air conditioning in Pheonix without using as much water as evaporative units that they use. I also agree with a previous post of yours that we should be switching to nuclear electrical generation. The key is using technologies which can be used today and continue to develop technologies for tomorrow. Government should play a role in this. However, if it merely mandates using less fossil fuels without an appropriate infra structure in place to replace our energy needs the money needed for investment in future technologies will not be there.

limerickman

I agree 100%.
Individually we can all do more to not waste energy - like you, we turn off the lights when we leave the room, I encourage the family to use public transport
(or walk) whenever possible and to not use the car.
I encourge the family to not continually boil the kettle - fill the kettle boil the water and fill the teapot, instead of constantly boiling the kettle to fill one cup of tea.

At a national level - Europeans need to look to countries in Scandinavia and Austria : they have taken the lead in looking at energy conservation in the home.
Building technologies developed in Austria for example show that houses built using the Austrian method retain heat more efficiently.
This concept will now be passed in to legislation across the EU - where all new houses will be required to have "energy testing" and "energy licence" before being allowed to be put on the market.

And you're correct - we need to pester our politicians to make the green agenda more proactive.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

mopar

Yes, Global Warming is real. It's not doing TOO much right now (May look like it, but it's got a long way to go.) but we shouldn't panic crazily over it. There is an El Nino this year, so if the weather gets to acting VERY weird, it's probably not Global Warming.

__________________
The-tried-a-backflip-and-didn't-land-it-kid.

ellno#1

El nino is at present influencing the weather patten aound the Pacific Ocean but it is slowly diminishing and La ninja is becoming more predominant, so it looks as though the weather will stabilise slightly. Normal rainfall should return to such places as Australia, where they have been suffering one of the worst droughts for several years. Now having said that, Northern Queensland, Australia had a doosie of a Cyclone only a couple of months ago. Unfotunately the rain fell in the wrong places and eventually just flowed out to sea to polute the Great Barrier Reef with Farm Chemical Run Off and soil sediment. The catchment areas to the north west of Brisbane, where the large dams are, have not received rain for several years, this is where the population of Brisbane get their supply of water from. The population in Brisbane Queensland, has increased quite substancially over the course of the past ten years and with dam levels down a low as 20% the various shire and municipal councils have imposed water use restriction. The people who live around those areas are not allowed to hose their gardens and wateing plants can only occur on special days and that can only be done with watering cans or buckets.
Now despite the phenomenon of El Nino and La Ninja which mainly affects the Pacific Ocean area, the weather is becoming more severe right across the globe. The extremes of snow-fall, rain-fall, cyclonic activity, Ice Cap melting and other types of weather pattens have become worse over the course of the last five years at least. It will slowly become more aparent as time passes until we will all need to find a mountain hideout to live. Them mountaintops are going to get very crowded, that is if there are any left to live on and the coal companies haven't cut them off to get at more fossil fuels.

ndbiker

THOSE OLD, FAMILIAR TUNES

GLOBAL COOLING: 1890s-1930s
The Times, February 24, 1895
"Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again"
Fears of a "second glacial period" brought on by increases in northern glaciers and the severity of Scandinavia's climate.
New York Times, October 7, 1912
"Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age"
Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1923
"The possibility of another Ice Age already having started ... is admitted by men of first rank in the scientific world, men specially qualified to speak."
Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1923
"Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada."
Time Magazine, September 10, 1923
"The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age."
New York Times, September 18, 1924
"MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age"

GLOBAL WARMING: 1930s-1960s
New York Times, March 27, 1933
"America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise"
Time Magazine, January 2, 1939
"Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right.... weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer."
Time Magazine, 1951
Noted that permafrost in Russia was receding northward at 100 yards per year.
New York Times, 1952
Reported global warming studies citing the "trump card" as melting glaciers. All the great ice sheets stated to be in retreat.
U.S. News and World Report, January 18, 1954
"[W]inters are getting milder, summers drier. Glaciers are receding, deserts growing."

GLOBAL COOLING: 1970s
Time Magazine, June 24, 1974
"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."
Christian Science Monitor, August 27, 1974
"Warning: Earth's Climate is Changing Faster than Even Experts Expect"
Reported that "glaciers have begun to advance"; "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter"; and "the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool".
Science News, March 1, 1975
"The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed, and we are unlikely to quickly regain the 'very extraordinary period of warmth' that preceded it."
International Wildlife, July-August, 1975
"But the sense of the discoveries is that there is no reason why the ice age should not start in earnest in our lifetime."
New York Times, May 21, 1975
"Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable"

GLOBAL WARMING: 1990s-?
Earth in the Balance, Al Gore, 1992
"About 10 million residents of Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of systenance because of the rising sea level due to global warming, in the next few decades."
Time Magazine, April 19, 2001
"[S]cientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible."
New York Times, December 27, 2005
"Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming"
The Daily Telegraph, February 2, 2006
"Billions will die, says Lovelock, who tells us that he is not usually a gloomy type. Human civilization will be reduced to a'broken rabble ruled by brutal warlords,' and the plague-ridden remainder of the species will flee the cracked and broken earth to the Arctic, the last temperate spot where a few breeding couples will survive."

limerickman

So you're still contending that there is no climate change?

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

ndbiker

Actually I'm contending that science and the media have been making contentions about climate change for over a hundred years and they haven't been very consistent about it. It has been 15 years since Al Gore said Bangledesh would be under water within a few decades and last I heard it's not, nor is it in immediate peril of doing so. I applaud science and all that they do. But one thing they have been pretty lousy at is predicting the future or even the past for that matter. It may take a little while but it would not surprise me to see the global cooling scientists rise up again before I leave this earth. In the mean time I'll continue to save energy by using compact flourescents, driving fuel efficient cars, updating my modest home with energy efficient windows, insulation, appliances and heating and cooling systems and riding my bike as much as is feasible. I do this not because I'm afraid of global warming but because it is a wise use of my resources. I think I'll have some bread with butter (saturated fats), wait no margarine (transfats), wait no jam (high fructose corn syrup), .....science arrrrgh.

Bro Deal

This is a bogus list. It has only been very recently that we have the monitoring capability and data about the past temperature to begin to understand trends. Past predictions made without data are worthless. The issue has become politicized. It is undeniable that many reports have played fast and loose with statistics, comingling the warming that occured coming out of the Little Ice Age with warming from the last few decades, for example. Things like solar variance, which I tend to think is a major component, has been treated like a heresy. But the sheer amount carbon being released by burning hydrocarbons has to have some effect.

__________________
"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

ndbiker

I'm sure that this sight is bogus too. I'll be curious, however, to see if we ever even see this program in the United States. http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?...ims_documentary

azdroptop

Completely bogus.

ellno#1

This thread has gone awfully quiet over the course of the last week or so, the documentary on Chanel 4 must have hit the spot. I did not see the documentary in question but have just read the forum and it's contents associated with it. Maybe there is a hidden agenda asociated with research into global warming, lots of money is being spent on study but how much is being spent on something worthwhile like fixing the problem, that is, if it can be fixed.
Or on the other hand, do we just sit around and wait for the sun to stop it's extra ordinary activity, my question is, what other choise do we have in this matter.
Despite the suns activity being to blame for the present problem, we can still help with cutting back our dependence on oil and coal by exploiting the suns rays to generate electricityand the wind to assist in doing the same.
More importantly, stop spoiling the planet that we all rely on for our existence, it boils down to the fact we must stop "shitting in our own nest".
No matter how much NASA would like us to think they can get to Mars, it isn't going to happen in the next millenium and to have a colony of earth people living there is not going to happen either. Don't hold your breath for a quick fix folks.
There are far more pressing factors to take into consideration, especially for those who live in the California's, the San Andreous (excuse the spelling) Fault is due for a big one, the last one happened three hundred years ago with a Sunami that wiped out a lot of the coast there, the Sunami associated with that activity eventually reached Japan five hours later and caused the same ammount of devastation there. It was reported at the time, waves as big as two hundred feet high swept all before it.
Before that geological activity in the 1700's it occured in the 1400's as well, the native Americans/Canadians tell of the Thunderbird in stories passed down through generations of tribal elders. Take the time and check it out, there's a lot to learn about our very unique planet and it's many wonders.

ndbiker

California's San Andreas Fault and the impending earthquake illustrate the problem of dealing with the problem of the concept of man made global warming. I would claim that the likelyhood of a major earthquake along the San Andreas fault would be agreed upon by a much larger consensus of scientists than the likelyhood of catastrophic disasters brought about by man made global warming. The fault is observable, we have historic examples of earthquakes which have caused death and major damage and it is reasonable to expect the same will happen at sometime in the relatively near future. Do we see a mass exodus amongst the population of California? No. The only aspect of the problem the citizens of western California can control they choose not to. They won't leave. The citizens of New Orleans were given nearly a weeks warning and many of them would not leave. It seems the more horrible the disaster is portrayed the more intense the desire to hunker down and save what you have. Now we have the theory of man made global warming and the media and some scientists promising horrible results. We have little in the way historical evidence to suggests such catasprophes will occur, yet we expect major behaviorial shifts to occur. A more likely behavioral change will be that people will start to hoard their resources investing less in conservation as they fear costs of energy will skyrocket as disaster looms. This is more likely because people are selfish and the results of hoarding can be more immediately gratifying than attempting to dramatically change ones life style for a problem that is not immediately apparant and even if it does exist your part does little to avert disaster. I think people will more likely invest in new energy technologies (personally and globally) if they are optimistic about their future. My objection is not to the study of man's affects on our environment but to the medias desire to exploit our fears and present a very one sided argument concerning theories of man made global warming and it's impact.