There's enough buzz (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=433170&in_page_id=1770) to warrant its own thread. We should discuss. Not sure who else will!

Well you know you have me hooked on this one!

well, it sure was an opportune moment for a photo (and story to go with it)! I think those bears are robust enough to make it off their precarious perches.

But mainly the shot is an attention-grabber to bring up issue of the real effects warming may have on polar bears (i.e. forced to swim farther, etc).

As someone whose entire school is populated with dolphin-huggers (nothing wrong with marine mammals.... they need a lot of help recovering and maintaining their populations with as much junk we pump into their domains), I think I keep a middle-of-the-road (i like to call it scientific) approach to climate change that some may think borders on heresy.

My point is, we need to make changes to what we pump into the seas and atmosphere.... but people probably do not need to trade in their cars for bicycles just yet. Not that it would happen anyway. Drastic change isnt going to happen unless, say, WWIII happens and we return to the stone age.

There is a lot that needs to be understood. Thats partially why i changed my major from marine biology to marine science.... because it is much more.... multi-discipline.

Ok, fact: theres more CO2 in the atmosphere than....ever? But here is another: the sun goes through discrete phases of varying activity levels. With all well-documented shifts between ice ages and normal periods, and we dont even have their exact causes pinned down reliably?

Ok! Now.... be gentle with me... no public stoning please? Besides...this is how we advance the collective knowledge of the human race... not by being told that the world is flat or round and blindly believing it... but by asking questions! Force people to find more than one way to prove their theories.

Hopefully politics aside.... These discussions are so much more interesting when we are talking just the science. but we are all nerds here, right? i know i am.

as one of those infamous professors (you know the type) delights to do..... lesse... is this the "devils advocate" smiley? :sagrin:

woo that was fun to write

Sigh.

Fluffysquid,

I have got to ride on your side most of the way here. The best example of what I deem a reasonable approach is what I have seen of Amanda Vincent's set up in the Phillipines with the seahorse program she instituted. It is a myth that poor native peoples understand and treat the environment any better than the industrial nations. There are just fewer people and less destructive means but humans USE the environment. Responsibly encouraging healthy populations so that we can continue using what we have is where I feel emphasis needs to be increased. Many of the public aquariums and some zoos are attempting this kind of education and I feel that aquarium keeping helps to understand the need for a healthy environment. I salute the schools that have hands-on science programs to present this exposure without the "in- your-face" attitude, often in direct conflict with parental behavior, that many schools foster through hands-off book preaching.

If being green means that people have to give up their achieved lifestyle it just won't happen. Finding ways for the companies to save/make money by being more responsible is a winner every time. I feel that science/technology are the only answers to producing less impactive human consumption. Doing without just won't happen and neither will going backwards in time (Case and point - Rober Dole's disasterous bid for the presidency in 1996 - No one wanted to go back to the 1950's even if they agreed that life had gotten too complicated).

We have validated that the earth has always been in a changing state and we have no clue where it is taking us nor will any of us be around to find out. However, the ability to observe and control the negative impact of our usage is one of the things that only human beings can do and somehow the over green and over industrial need to be removed from the decision making to allow progressive control of the envionment.

As for the bears, the documentary I just saw (put out by the BBC and Animal Planet) actually stated that the bears expend less energy and have a more comfortable life during the times the artic is NOT frozen. There is a greater abundance of food and they are designed for long stays in the water. According to the film, it is during their stay on LAND that they face increasing starvation.

Ok, fact: theres more CO2 in the atmosphere than....ever? But here is another: the sun goes through discrete phases of varying activity levels. With all well-documented shifts between ice ages and normal periods, and we dont even have their exact causes pinned down reliably?
I'm aware of the solar cycling and the uncertainty of it all, but when we happen to have reached the highest temperatures recorded on Earth for the last ___ thousands of years (can't find the lecture with that figure, its data from the ice cores) and it happens to coincide with human being's industrialization, its a little too coincidental for me.


As for the bears, the documentary I just saw (put out by the BBC and Animal Planet) actually stated that the bears expend less energy and have a more comfortable life during the times the artic is NOT frozen. There is a greater abundance of food and they are designed for long stays in the water. According to the film, it is during their stay on LAND that they face increasing starvation.

I don't think you entirely understood what the BBC one was saying. Yes, polar bears are buoyant and amazing swimmers. However, despite being classified as marine mammals, they cannot swim indefinitely. Therefore, with ice melting they are being forced onto the land more than ever, which, as you did seem to catch, results in increasing starvation. They simply aren't adapted for hunting on land

Also, there is not a greater abundance of food in the water. Polar bears eat seals. They have to. There's no real access to fresh water for the bears and they get their necessary amount by metabolizing fats (ie: seal blubber, they love the stuff). Who do you think is better adapted for a swimming existence, the bears or the seals? The bears need the ice so they can catch the seals once they've hauled out or when they come to a hole in the ice to breath, when they're vulnerable. The CBC documentaries series Planet Earth showed a polar bear so desperate for food, after swimming many kilometres back to land, that it was trying to attack a herd of walruses. Didn't go so well for the bear and it died of its injuries.


I'm not trying to attack people. I love this community and the openness it allows. I am just tired of people being "conservative" and "objective" when the world is changing. The bottom-line is, what if it is our fault? What if it is us, and we do nothing, and we ruin this planet for most forms of life? I know I don't want that to be my species legacy.

I can tell this is going to be a good thread! :wink:

Cheers!

I can tell this is going to be a good thread! :wink:

Cheers!

most definately. :wink:

these are the two school's of thought i always see... the "we dont fully understand the processes, i dont think humans are powerful enough to have these effects,"

and then the "but what if we are?" school of thought.

as I said, i'm not quite either of these. but i'm interested to find the answer.

I'm all about protecting what we have and cutting pollution. You wont find many people madder than I was when one of my professors returned from a survey in China, without sighting a single river dolphin.... still gets my blood boiling :mad:

they cant officially declare it extint until i hasnt been seen for 50 years... but the chances of a viable population existing still are slim.

the sun goes through discrete phases of varying activity levels. With all well-documented shifts between ice ages and normal periods, and we dont even have their exact causes pinned down reliably?

This is more than a little misleading, IMO. Geologists (you know, those people who collected all the data to begin with) have had a very good understanding of orbital forcing and its relationship to glacial/interglacial cycles for almost a hundred years. The historical record has become much more detailed since then via the collection of stable isotope data from glacial ice, reef carbonate and foramifera. This supports the orbital forcing model in no small way.

There's no question our understanding of global climate has a ways to go, but at this point the only way to discount global warming is to shortchange the level of knowledge we do have. We know what the partial pressures of O2 and CO2 were in the ocean and in the atmosphere for the last 200 million years. We know what the temperature and sea level were for much longer. We know how the pH of the ocean has changed over time and how organisms and climate react. When the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere shifts in geologic history, generally we can even discern where it came from. There is data in the geologic record that shows orbital data (both insolation and tidal) a hundred million years ago--we're not just talking the last few ky. We understand these relationships pretty darn well. If you're not getting any of this information from your "marine sciences" major, either you're in a Shamu-feeding program or you should consider a better school! :lol:

Quite ironically we owe most of this knowledge to companies like Exxon. If they didn't sink so much money into R&D and exploration, we would have no idea what was about to hit us.

Dan

with the caveat that I don't understand this particularly well, and just got a crash course from Hallucigenia recently, apparently the orbital version of this (mostly the impact of Jupiter and Saturn on the Earth's orbit) kinda-sorta explain the observed ice ages and whatnot, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles for a pretty good explanation. However, some astrophysicist seems to have come up with a solar physics cycles model that might turn out to be an alternative explanation: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/24/2352218 -- I'm not qualified to assess the relative merits, but he doesn't seem like a complete crank.

Anyway, though, it drives me completely nuts when issues get politicized enough that more people are pushing a political agenda with "spin science" (which may or may not be wrong) to the point where it's hard to have an intelligent discussion of a topic, because there's too much FUD around. As far as I've been able to tell from scientists I respect, though, the science-spin-FUD in Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie is a fairly accurate representation of the best guesses of most academics who make careers out of studying this stuff. Although anyone who says they understand the whole system is blowing smoke, most of the objections to the fundamental premise of increased greenhouse gas leading to climate change seem to be taking nit-picky details and using them as an excuse for a political position of "it's not 100% proven right, so we might as well assume it's wrong, since that's aligned with our politics."

A more concerning issue, for me, is that we don't have any real, tested theory about what will happen to the Earth as we shift a few parameters (particularly CO2 levels) into domains where we haven't seen them before, so we don't know what will happen, and when whatever does happen happens, we'll be stuck with it for many lifetimes. Since we pretty much evolved to be in the "sweet spot" that we like now, any change is likely to be for the worse, so I think there's a very strong rational argument for trying to head off a potential problem at the pass, since even if there were only a 10% chance that we could be at risk for making Earth a lousy place to live, I'm not really into Russian Roulette, and I've never heard a convincing argument that the "gloom and doom" climate scientists stand a 10% or less chance of being right.

I make a habit of trying to be very critical of overstated claims, because seeing science misrepresented for political spin bugs me no matter what the source, and despite this tendency I'm convinced that there is real reason for concern on this issue.

If you're not getting any of this information from your "marine sciences" major, either you're in a Shamu-feeding program or you should consider a better school!

hey now... :hmm:

Hi,

I often wonder whether people should reference their comments on a thread like this. Then we could tell where they got their information from. As for myself I'd like to read this new climate change report, before I come to any conclusions.

:twocents: :twocents:

hey now... :hmm:
Right, let's tone that rhetoric down, please! This thread will not live if we can't figure out a way to discuss ideas/facts/theories, and avoid attacking people or personalities. It would be a shame if we couldn't accomplish this here (I know we can!).

This is the bummer about talking climate change... there's relaxed people and... non. I'm really just throwing stuff out there and seeing what other throw in their replies.

woah posts abound in between refreshes.

Fluffy: My apologies if I was a bit harsh--but lets be honest: you can't take a "scientific" view of this by dismissing the science, which is essentially the position you took in your post. I'm happy to apologize for being caustic, but I won't apologize for calling you out on that :)

Monty: There's plenty of "observational experiments" in the history of the Earth where we can look at causes and effects of shifting "CO2 parameters." The Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum is one such event: a rapid, massive increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and ocean that's associated with a rapid-onset (civilization-scale, thousands of years) extreme heating event (5-8 degrees C) and ocean acidification. The amount of carbon that probably caused this over a couple thousand years isn't that far off from what we've put in a century or two. (!)

These data aren't ambiguous--this isn't an argument between different computer models predicting the future like the radio hosts like to suggest--this is cold, hard history. I agree with you that the critics in the scientific community tend to be old cranks who are holding onto a nitpick. This is the nature of science: there are still a handful of old scientists still alive who don't believe in plate tectonics, and a couple who don't believe birds originated from dinosaurs. The concept of either not being the case is pretty much preposterous, as much as suggesting that the DNA molecule isn't involved in cellular division.

Also to Monty: Milankovitch is pretty much canonical, although the term orbital forcing is a bit more PC because it allows for more than just his contributions. Its better than "kinda-sorta."

Dan

I suggest this as a valuable site.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/

Here's one about reducing your carbon footprint.http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=549166122006

here's a British site
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/Minimise_cfp.html

Another on your carbon footprint

http://www.globalwarming.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=147&Itemid=1

A British site for calculating your carbon footprint.

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.html

another good site

http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/action/footprint.php

and another

http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/whats-your-carb.html

Bottom line: Even if for some reason you choose to ignore most of the world's leading climate scientists, there is no excuse for not doing what you can. If your doctor told you that your carotid was 97% occluded you wouldn't wait until you had a massive stroke to take action would you? Well, about 97% of climate scientists believe that we are in deep trouble if we don't take action now. It's a no brainer that each of us should take responsibility to do anything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. Small steps by many individuals can help. If all of us replace just one light bulb with a compact flurescent it would help. If we all replaced all of our light bulbs it would help a whole lot. Right now anything we do is voluntary. If we don't take voluntary steps now, in the not so distant future it may become mandatory.

Bottom line: Even if for some reason you choose to ignore most of the world's leading climate scientists, there is no excuse for not doing what you can. If your doctor told you that your carotid was 97% occluded you wouldn't wait until you had a massive stroke to take action would you? Well, about 97% of climate scientists believe that we are in deep trouble if we don't take action now. It's a no brainer that each of us should take responsibility to do anything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. Small steps by many individuals can help. If all of us replace just one light bulb with a compact flurescent it would help. If we all replaced all of our light bulbs it would help a whole lot. Right now anything we do is voluntary. If we don't take voluntary steps now, in the not so distant future it may become mandatory.

To be fair, experts can be wrong. Many modern astronomers have no problem buying into string theory hook, line and sinker despite the fact that its completely untestable. If 97% of scientists jumped off a cliff, would you, too? :)

My point is that the reason we get an education is so that we ourselves can be prepared to research and evaluate these concepts on our own without having to rely blindly on experts, who can be as petty as the rest of us. In this instance, the literature is pretty dense and it does take a lot of patience for someone from outside the field to get through it. But, once you have that basic understanding of how this science is done its pretty clear that climate change isn't smoke and mirrors and is very well supported with hard science.

Dan

I know the science. I've been reading about climate change for years. One of the best books out there is by Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers, which I highly recommend. My point is that even for those who choose to not believe that there is a problem, it makes a lot more sense to assume that the 97% are right. It can only help, and unlike your jumping off a cliff thing, can do absolutely no harm. Even if you don't believe, most of the carbon reducing suggestions will help the bottom line of families and individuals anyway, so you aren't doing anything that doesn't have another useful purpose too. If you want to get into this in a much bigger way there are quite a few things to do that will mean a major investment up front, and those are probably for the more dedicated among us. When we bought our Prius in 2003 we weren't doing it because of the gasoline prices, although it's pretty nice getting 52 miles to the gallon, we bought it because of the reduced emissions. The upfront price wasn't as high as we thought it would be either, because we got a very nice federal tax rebate and didn't have to pay any state sales tax. When we moved and replaced our major appliances we bought the most energy efficient large appliances we could find, and although they cost more initially, since we tend to keep appliances for a long time (on average 20 years) the pay off will come over the years. I'm hoping to replace the windows in the next couple of years, and am looking into a solar water heater. In the meantime, all light bulbs that burn out get replaced by compact fluorescents. That helps cut cooling costs too, because incandescents and halogens put out a lot of heat, which you obviously don't want in southern Arizona.
Taking steps to reduce your carbon footprint simply makes sense.

Its not just economical, it can be said there's a spiritual benefit to not getting caught up in conspicuous consumption. That's not to say it isn't fun to have nice toys now and then, but I just can't wrap my mind around the folks who buy a new $50,000 caddy every couple years. On the other hand I've met people who's Prius' was just as much to show off than to slow carbon emissions :). I'm glad this kind of technology is going mainstream, even GM--the industry's own dinosaur--say they're serious about producing their new plug-in concept as soon as the battery tech matures. Honda and DaimlerChrysler are offering diesels again in the US, and VW is replacing their perennial 1.8 TDI with a newer, cleaner diesel.

Given these changes are about economics and not conservationism or karma, but its encouraging given that many predicted we'd need $100/barrel oil before seeing real changes like this.

My wife and I have been putting in compact flourescents, too. Again, all economics aside they're just better light bulbs. The light coming out of our neighbors' windows is a sickly orange. Ours is a warm daylight!

caveat emptor: I'm opinionated, so although this is intended to be civil, it's also intended to represent my opinion without pulling punches. Feel free to punch back if it bugs you, and I don't mean any of it personally, and feel free to let me know if I should come across as crossing the line.

To be fair, experts can be wrong. Many modern astronomers have no problem buying into string theory hook, line and sinker despite the fact that its completely untestable. If 97% of scientists jumped off a cliff, would you, too? :)

My point is that the reason we get an education is so that we ourselves can be prepared to research and evaluate these concepts on our own without having to rely blindly on experts, who can be as petty as the rest of us. In this instance, the literature is pretty dense and it does take a lot of patience for someone from outside the field to get through it. But, once you have that basic understanding of how this science is done its pretty clear that climate change isn't smoke and mirrors and is very well supported with hard science.

Dan

Except, surprisingly to all the smarmy theorists, String theory may be testable after all (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/24/1645255)! I am greatly amused, and I'll be laughing whether it turns out to be right or wrong, just like I'm amused at all the people who said "it's physically impossible to make a blue LED."

Re: Orbital forcing: my vague understanding is that there are some open questions as to why the frequency of ice ages changed from following 2 different periods (41kY and 100kY) at some point, although high-order effects can be fudged to match either frequency (and probably a host of others, given how hard anything more complicated than a 3-body problem gets when you start taking these effects into account) this guy's solar cycles thing also matches the different frequencies, too. From talking to Hallucigenia, who's actually taking a current class on this stuff, I get the impression that it's pretty darned complicated, but there is a lot of useful data, so we have a lot of insights, but also there are so many variables that it's not something that's "cut and dried," either. My point, though, was intended to be that it it seems like a dichotomy is that the climate change advocates apply spin by overstating how much of the situation is understood with a high degree of precision, but they don't misrepresent the big picture that's emerging, while the climate change deniers tend to extrapolate using dubious logic like "if it's not 100% explainable, then we can be justified in denying that the big picture exists because we can find some nit-picky detail counterexample and then say that that invalidates the whole big picture and we know nothing."

If Hallucigenia sees this, please chime in and let me know if I'm representing what you taught me accurately enough, since some of the references you sent were pretty tough going.

Re: reducing carbon footprints and things, although I do random assorted things like CF bulbs and Prius driving, I also think a lot of people to "feel good" things that have very little impact, and then decide "I'm doing my part." Or, on the flip side, a lot of things that one could do don't make economic sense on a personal scale, and don't make much difference. Although I recently found out that there are now special CF bulbs that work with dimmers, a year or so I couldn't find any, so I looked at LED bulbs for our lights that are on dimmers. Since our chandelier takes 7 bulbs, we were looking at spending more than $150 on LED bulbs for the thing, which would probably end up taking many years to pay back the win over incandescents.

But the main thing that frustrates me about taking specific measures is that people tend to apply "think globally, act locally" to the point where they don't "think globally, act globally, and address the significant contributors." Although the gas efficiency of your Prius vs your Expedition may be significant, or whether you use CF or incandescent bulbs, consider that how much air travel you do, how much concrete is cured to build buildings to support you, how many products you buy that are produced far away and shipped, and all sorts of other things may turn out to be a larger contribution. And yet people rationalize not actually looking at those numbers by saying "oh, I use CF bulbs in my whole house." And on a more extreme level, I would think that people can do more good by investing in alternative energy development or lobbying to not let short-sighted energy moguls make national energy strategy policy than any of these "personal lifestyle" goals; I'd rather see someone drive a hummer and develop usable fusion power than ride their bicycle everywhere and spend their time doing organic subsistence farming. Of course, if the fusion developer drove a Prius instead it wouldn't bother me any, but the relative impact of the two things is disproportionate... not meaning to be curmudgeon, but it irritates me when people get all holier-than-thou about making lifestyle changes that are a drop in the bucket. Not that I'm clear on how best to approach high-impact solutions, either, and not that I don't do the drop in the bucket things a bit, but I avoid pretending that the little things are good enough to do anything more than encourage mindfulness, and I don't get all stoic about it (we didn't get rid of our mustangs when we got the prius, for example, we just put most of our miles on the prius these days.)

caveat emptor: I'm opinionated, so although this is intended to be civil, it's also intended to represent my opinion without pulling punches. Feel free to punch back if it bugs you, and I don't mean any of it personally, and feel free to let me know if I should come across as crossing the line.

Monty, there's nothing in the post at all that I take offense at!


Except, surprisingly to all the smarmy theorists, String theory may be testable after all (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/24/1645255)! I am greatly amused, and I'll be laughing whether it turns out to be right or wrong, just like I'm amused at all the people who said "it's physically impossible to make a blue LED."

This is fair, it may very well end up being completely testable. Be that as it may, it is still somewhat disturbing to me how people in the field have latched onto it. This isn't endemic to astronomers and I can think of similar untestable-but-still-good-ideas in the geosciences that some researchers have come to worship as canon.

Re: Orbital forcing: I'm a couple years rusty from when I had all the FFT, etc, down my throat, but its been my impression the 41/100ky issues really aren't that big in the scheme of things, especially given the complexity of the climate system. Its pretty shocking, given that complexity, that you can corelate the composite forcing curve with geologic history at all! An analogy might be questioning natural selection because paleontologists are still arguing over the phylogenetic position of a particular tyrannosaurid. I would be interested to hear Hallucigenia chime in, though.

But the main thing that frustrates me about taking specific measures is that people tend to apply "think globally, act locally" to the point where they don't "think globally, act globally, and address the significant contributors." Although the gas efficiency of your Prius vs your Expedition may be significant, or whether you use CF or incandescent bulbs, consider that how much air travel you do, how much concrete is cured to build buildings to support you, how many products you buy that are produced far away and shipped, and all sorts of other things may turn out to be a larger contribution. And yet people rationalize not actually looking at those numbers by saying "oh, I use CF bulbs in my whole house." And on a more extreme level, I would think that people can do more good by investing in alternative energy development or lobbying to not let short-sighted energy moguls make national energy strategy policy than any of these "personal lifestyle" goals; I'd rather see someone drive a hummer and develop usable fusion power than ride their bicycle everywhere and spend their time doing organic subsistence farming. Of course, if the fusion developer drove a Prius instead it wouldn't bother me any, but the relative impact of the two things is disproportionate... not meaning to be curmudgeon, but it irritates me when people get all holier-than-thou about making lifestyle changes that are a drop in the bucket. Not that I'm clear on how best to approach high-impact solutions, either, and not that I don't do the drop in the bucket things a bit, but I avoid pretending that the little things are good enough to do anything more than encourage mindfulness, and I don't get all stoic about it (we didn't get rid of our mustangs when we got the prius, for example, we just put most of our miles on the prius these days.)

I'm with you 100% here. Doing the small things is good, but what we really need is a progressive energy policy at the national and even global levels. I'm a supporter of nuclear power because even if we have a Chernobyl every 30 years I think the planet would be a better place in a century than if we keep burning coal the way we do today. (!)

Monty, there's nothing in the post at all that I take offense at!


I pretty much figured you were thick-skinned enough to not worry, but I wasn't sure if I was too harsh on the prius-driving CF-lightbulb-using crowd, despite being one of them...(although see earlier comment about mustangs... and no, I don't have any "my other car is a Prius" stickers, although I'm tempted to put a "my other cars are Mustangs, nyah nyah" sticker on the Prius, but I don't think Andrea would let me)

Oh, yeah, by the way, all you Prius-driving hippies, we have a mad scientist friend who can upgrade your Prius batteries and software to get > 100mpg, and also let you plug it in. Of course, you have to be willing to void your warranty. And pay him more money than you're likely to save. But you can be Prius-er than your Prius-driving
neighbors! (Of course, we haven't had him do ours yet, but he did convince some major company to hire him to do their 30-car fleet, so I guess he's got the technical issues worked out fairly well.)


I'm with you 100% here. Doing the small things is good, but what we really need is a progressive energy policy at the national and even global levels. I'm a supporter of nuclear power because even if we have a Chernobyl every 30 years I think the planet would be a better place in a century than if we keep burning coal the way we do today. (!)

Yeah, I'm with you on the nuclear power... because of the dangers, it needs to be over-designed for safety to avoid problems, but I don't consider that a showstopper requirement. And that's another one where spin-science often dominates real science, unfortunately... For example, it's not obvious to me why people think it's worse to have a boxcar with spent fuel rods go through their town than, say, a tank car of chlorine that will kill them instead of just requiring a bit of cleanup. Or, for that matter, having a coal-burning power plant anywhere near their town. On the other hand, my roommate went off to get an MS in "Nuclear Engineering," and after seeing how incompetent some of his peers were, decided he was much more reluctant to live anywhere near a nuclear power plant, so it sounds like there's still a lot of work to do in making sure that bad engineering and bad practices are avoided. But that's a technological and social problem to be solved; banning it entirely instead of solving the problems seems to me to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I'd be afraid to death of voiding the warranty on a Prius--We're the kind of people who keep a car until its 20 years old, and I'm not sure how the 1st-gen hybrid technology will age. A diesel Jetta gets similar mileage and is more my style.

The politics of where to put nuclear waste is the biggest hurdle in the uS. Yucca Mountain is just a terrible idea--you might as well jam barrels of the stuff into the San Andreas Fault or the cauldera of Mount St. Helens. Yet burying it in a benign, impermeable place like the Bonneville salt flats can't be done because there's too much political clout in Utah.

France generates most of their power from nuclear plants, and I've often wondered what they do with the waste.

I would love to see fusion power in my lifetime, but I don't give it a great chance. Despite the amount of money being spent on it, there is a HA-UGE knowledge gap.

Other than that, I see only two things that will have a massive impact on the way that we live as a species. One is still nuclear war. Lots of scary stuff and scary people that don't think past their childrens' lifetime, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. The other is pandemic, which could be bird flu or something out of left field.

I think though that out of the two, I would prefer pandemic if I had my choice of evils. Both take a large percentage of the population out of the gene pool, but a pandemic would at least give us some advantage in the future, being that a substantial part of our DNA comes from viruses.

Other than that, the number of people in the world, the rate that it is climbing, and the relative speed that we can reverse the negative impacts of our technology all add up to some crappy times ahead.

Here's a little something that I have thought about. How much energy does the interet and it's peripheral attachments use? Does changing lightbulbs even come close to the amount we gooble up every day checking email?? Not to mention the activities involved in producing the hardware.

In case you didn't notice, I'm on the side of the fence that says we are screwing things up.

Here's a little something that I have thought about. How much energy does the interet and it's peripheral attachments use? Does changing lightbulbs even come close to the amount we gooble up every day checking email?? Not to mention the activities involved in producing the hardware.

I read something the other day about some company that wants to make more power-friendly networking hardware, but I tend to think it's silly. A very powerful computer takes less power than a few light bulbs, and most networking hardware is pretty frugal. Of course, the air conditioning for where the server is can be pretty significant.

I'm inclined to believe that existence of the internet saves power in the big picture, since it enables people to communicate without traveling, so between teleconferencing, telecommuting, and being able to download things that otherwise had to be trucked around (movies, music, books) it cuts down somewhat on the massive energy use of travel and transportation. Of course, now I order stuff online that some UPS truck has to drop off at my door, but that's not so much less efficient than the trucks that used to deliver it to local stores. Certainly, if I can work from home, the energy cost of my networking for the day is far less than 5% of the cost it would take for me to commute 10-20 miles to and from work.

Also, heaters, air conditioners, refrigerators, and lights take far, far more energy than electronic components, so there are a lot of "daily life" items that are vastly more energy intensive than any computer equipment. But I think the travel savings are the most extreme-- the amount of electricity used in electric and hybrid cars is huge... we don't tend to think of how much energy there is in a tank of gas, but I know that Tesla Motors recommends people get a second whole-house power line to support charging one of their electric cars overnight... So if you can save on transportation, you're effectively saving as much power as the full power capacity of your house, at least to a first approximation.

Other than that, the number of people in the world, the rate that it is climbing, and the relative speed that we can reverse the negative impacts of our technology all add up to some crappy times ahead..

Oh, that's nothing:

In the US of A we live in $300,000 homes, drive $50,000 cars and have a two hundred billion dollar trade deficit with China. But most of our college graduates can't divide 56 by 7 without a calculator. Something has to give!

Ok guys, I certainly didn't mean that doing the "drop in the bucket thing" was enough. I'm a firm believer in lobbying, and I suspect there have been times when my congress person's aides have thought that I'm a real pain in the butt! We do need a comprehensive energy policy, and we need to invest heavily in wind and solar. Local initiatives such as what San Francisco is trying to do could be tried all over the country, or variations of it.. Tax rebates or other incentives to go solar in places like this (Az) would make a lot of sense. 2 way metering could help people make the switch because you wouldn't have to invest in a full solar array, you could do what you could afford, see the results yourself, but also contribute to the power on the grid.
Nuclear could be a solution, but not until more of the kinks are worked out of it. I lived near a nuke plant in Md, and knew a lot of the engineers. There were a lot of problems that a lot of people weren't aware of because they never made the papers. One of the biggest problems, other than the ubiquitous personnel problems, like guards growing (and using) pot on the grounds, engineers asleep in the ops center, etc, was the uneven and unpredictable materials degradation. Some things degraded much faster than they should have in one reactor, but behaved as expected in the other. I was part of the real time monitoring of the plant, and reported to the state radiation guy...one guy... I didn't see too many leaks, but there were some, and the people in the state office wouldn't have known about them if the monitors hadn't reported them. None of them were significant, but there were no monitors across the bay, and because of the prevailing winds they were more likely to see them than I was. Another problem is that the foxes are guarding the hen house. The NRC commissioners all come from the nuke industry...it's a revolving door. When Yankee Rowe was closed due to the embrittled reactor the chief commissioner said " We have to find a way to make it easier for these old plants to pass inspection." Not "We have to find a way to make these old plants safer." Personally, I think that showed what his agenda was.
Nafta has been a big contributer to the co2 problem too. With no requirements that basic safety and environmental standards be met a lot of US companies went over the border to Mexico and built plants that spew massive quantities of particulates and noxious gases into the air. In Big Bend National Park there used to be 60 mile visibility. Now it's down to just a few miles. Nafta must be renegotiated or abrogated

Official IPCC website

http://www.ipcc.ch/

to download report
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

from papers

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21170552-661,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/02/climate.change.report/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/earth/02cnd-climate.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1170478800&en=7f0ce59ee7d312e5&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

More to come.....

News...

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12232

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1392295.ece

The melting of the permafrost in Siberia will release huge amounts of methane which will further speed up warming. :sad:

new headline...

Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps


http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2016243,00.html#article_continue

Just read this ......

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070419_earth_timeline.html

and we need to invest heavily in wind and solar.

One problem we have with wind power over here :kiwiflag: is the traditional:

"Oh yes, I think wind power is a wonderful idea and terribly environmentally friendly, we should definately have wind farms.....oh not near where I live of course, I meant somewhere else":roll:

The problem is not anthropogenic it's URSINE!!!!

J

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

One problem we have with wind power over here :kiwiflag: is the traditional:

"Oh yes, I think wind power is a wonderful idea and terribly environmentally friendly, we should definately have wind farms.....oh not near where I live of course, I meant somewhere else":roll:

One problem us cloggies have (and we ALL live in windmills, growing our tulips) is that wind energy will never deliver on the basis of lack of efficiency (air has too little mass per displaced volume; simple maths). If it were 8 Beaufort continuously, you'd get the rated megawatts for turbines alright, but alas on average we get 3.

In principle this means that even a large 3kW turbine delivers 500W on average, implying we would need to build Yearly Dutch Energy Consumption/500W = 12,500,000 kWyear/500 W = 25,000 windmills in a country the size of Maine to make it into anything sensible. Given the additional "bonus" of no power on a quiet day, wind turbines show their face as the subsidy eating machines they really are.

Solar: yes
Tidal: yes
Hydrogen: oh yes
Fission: Yuck
Fusion: YES
Antimatter: If only
Wind: big no no

Tidal: yes
Hydrogen: oh yes
Fission: Yuck
Fusion: YES
Antimatter: If only
Wind: big no no

There are some speculative plans for some tidal generators here but there are some concerns by commercial fishers that they may start competing for space. Personally I wonder what effect they will have on the tides themselvs in some places, I mean the energy isn't really 'free' but is being taken from the movement of the water.

I think that antimatter would face the same problem as hydrogen currently does. It's a wonderfull way of transporting energy to be used elsewhere (well except for the whole explodey thing) but the energy cost to produce it tends to exceed the energy produced at the end. And, of course, how are you generating the energy to make it in the first place?

another interesting article...

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070426_ocean_carbon.html

Re: wind power. There are some areas in the States, very high wind areas, where the generation of wind power is pretty easily accomplished. In some of those, such as parts of Texas, wind turbines are being interspersed among the oil derricks. In South Dakota a wind farm on the Rosebud reservation is already selling it's power. As a matter of fact, reservations in the northern plains area have a wind capacity of 700 GW. Currently the entire installed energy generating capacity in the US from all sources of energy is about 600 GW. Wind may not be the way to go in the Netherlands, but here in the US it has a great future. Add to that the capacity for solar power in large portions of the country. Right here in Az the capacity of almost every building and home to generate power with rooftop solar panels can not only provide for most, if not all of that building's energy needs, but on many, probably most days, those same solar panels can be generating extra power that goes back into the grid. What's needed is ways to make it more affordable.

Add to that the capacity for solar power in large portions of the country. Right here in Az the capacity of almost every building and home to generate power with rooftop solar panels can not only provide for most, if not all of that building's energy needs, but on many, probably most days, those same solar panels can be generating extra power that goes back into the grid. What's needed is ways to make it more affordable.

Well this article may offer some hope on the solar front

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4017784a13.html

There are plans here in NZ to put wind farms at Mahinerangi South of Dunedin and on the Lammermoor Ranges in Central Otago. It's meeting with a fair amount of opposition, not because of generating power or lack thereof but visual pollution... etc!

http://www.trustpower.co.nz/Content/Generation/WindFarms/Mahinerangi.aspx

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=37&objectid=10433527

[QUOTE=Jean;93786] It's meeting with a fair amount of opposition, not because of generating power or lack thereof but visual pollution... etc!
QUOTE]

I don't think we're asking for much, we just want power companies to produce vast amounts of electricity using a method that produces no CO2, produces no radioactive waste, doesn't use fossil fuels, doesn't require the diversion of waterways, won't affect tides, won't impact on the local environment when they construct it, is totally silent, and invisible. Is that too much to ask for? :wink:

[QUOTE=Jean;93786] It's meeting with a fair amount of opposition, not because of generating power or lack thereof but visual pollution... etc!
QUOTE]

I don't think we're asking for much, we just want power companies to produce vast amounts of electricity using a method that produces no CO2, produces no radioactive waste, doesn't use fossil fuels, doesn't require the diversion of waterways, won't affect tides, won't impact on the local environment when they construct it, is totally silent, and invisible. Is that too much to ask for? :wink:

Well Idon't think so :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

j

how about flying windfarms (http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8952080). Of course there's always the "aieeee! death from above" problem.

Not In My Back Yard folks also complain about noise, failures involving flaming generators or flying blades, and bird shredding from windfarms. I suspect these are exaggerated, but at South Point in Hawaii, there are some unmaintained 70s era turbines that clearly show signs of catastrophic failures I wouldn't want to be near.

I also wonder how many windmills it would take before impede the flow of air enough to change weather patterns... probably more than are likely to get built, I expect, but still, worth asking the question...

...I also wonder how many windmills it would take before impede the flow of air enough to change weather patterns... probably more than are likely to get built, I expect, but still, worth asking the question...


...To change them to what? To what they were before we cut down all the forests and made vast swaths of bare farmland and subdivisions?

I wonder if there were any impact at all, if it wouldn't be a positive one; more closely resembling the landscape here before we stripped the land.

...Just thinking out loud. :smile:

...To change them to what? To what they were before we cut down all the forests and made vast swaths of bare farmland and subdivisions?

I wonder if there were any impact at all, if it wouldn't be a positive one; more closely resembling the landscape here before we stripped the land.

...Just thinking out loud. :smile:

No clue. I've just noticed that people who talk about how global warming is going to change some Atlantic current that will make Britain look like Siberia don't seem to bat an eyelash at putting huge numbers of windmills in the middle of the US, which, presumably, will slow the prevailing winds in order to generate power. I don't know if this is a tiny drop in the bucket or not, or what it's effects would be if it is significant in some way... I'd go so far as to say, though, that if you choose a windy mountain pass to install windmills, if you put enough windmills to induce a lot of resistance, at some point the wind may well decide that most of it wants to go through some other place, or over the top. Of course, that might require an implausible number of windmills. I wonder if that "700GW could be provided by windpower" number Sorseress cited requires such an implausible number of windmills, in such a way that it would divert most of the wind in the great plains a few hundred feet higher to avoid those pesky windmills. That, admittedly, seems more likely than diverting the jet stream and turning the farm belt into a dust bowl, I guess.

But all the greenhouse gas and ozone hole problems come from a history of people thinking "human activity can't do meaningful change to the atmosphere" and being wrong, and yet people doing back-of-the-envelope calculations seem to think "if it's environmental enough, we can ignore these effects." Consider, for another example, the albedo effects of replacing hundreds of square miles of light colored desert with black solar cells.

I'm not wanting to be a naysayer, particularly... I like windmills and solar power (and probably tidal, although there I'm concerned that it may have substantial environmental effects on intertidal ecosystems and estuaries). It seems like a lot of these discussions involve people who like or dislike particular things selectively applying optimism or pessimism that supports their views, and then claiming that it's objective science. I'm not particularly accusing anyone here of doing that, but I think the media loves having pundits that do this debate one another, and so the public gets a lot of "these two so-called experts say different things, so choose which one is the expert you'll choose to side with" information, and very little "this actual expert, who's studied this issue for 30 years, goes into all the complexities about the issue and explains what the pros, cons, and unknowns are believed to be, and what their relative significance is, and why certain naive assumptions turn out to be wrong even though they sound good."

I seriously doubt that there will be enough windmills installed on Indian reservations in the northern great plains to ever generate the full 700GW, and those were just on the reservations, you understand, not the property belonging to the federal gov't. or non native ranchers. One of the reasons that I'm jazzed about the concept is not just environmental, it's also economic. Most of the reservations are on land that is worthless for much of anything, the inhabitants are living at poverty levels that are incomprehensible to most of us. Although a few of them have tried the casino thing, most of them are in such unpopulated areas that they can't draw from a very large population of would-be gamblers. Those casinos that have been effective are located near where a large tourist attraction already exists, and believe me, there's nothing to draw most people to the areas around most of those reservations. Wind turbines could raise the incomes of a lot of those tribes to the poverty level, maybe even higher.
There has been a lot of research on new methods of generating solar power, many of which are not at all obtrusive. There are solar panels designed to look like asphalt roof shingles, window screen made with some kind of a filament, (designed primarily for use in countries where lack of electricity and insect borne disease are dual problem so that's a fortuitous dual solution) and probably a bunch of other, newer things that I'm not aware of. I haven't been keeping up on it the way I used to. (Spending too much time on Tonmo, I guess. :grin:)

sounds good to me. In fact, I think it would be poetic justice if the reservations that we stiffed them with turn out to be a windfarm goldmine. I didn't particularly mean to be critical of you, just to air my typical gripe that a lot of this stuff is complicated, and it's hard to discern what's accurate analysis vs spin...

...It seems like a lot of these discussions involve people who like or dislike particular things selectively applying optimism or pessimism that supports their views, and then claiming that it's objective science...

Unfortunately, for those of us not directly involved in science, that's what we hear from the scientific community more often than not.

Let me clarify before you all start gathering wood for my fire; it's not that this represents a majority of the scientific community, only that (as Monty alluded to) it's all the media finds particularly interesting enough to cover so the rest of the (non scientific) world is aware of it.

sounds good to me. In fact, I think it would be poetic justice if the reservations that we stiffed them with turn out to be a windfarm goldmine. I didn't particularly mean to be critical of you, just to air my typical gripe that a lot of this stuff is complicated, and it's hard to discern what's accurate analysis vs spin...

I didn't take it that way. I know you well enough (from reading all of your posts) to know that you always analyse everything. You have the right kind of mind to be a scientist....I , on the other hand, do not.:grin:

well, it sure was an opportune moment for a photo (and story to go with it)! I think those bears are robust enough to make it off their precarious perches.

But mainly the shot is an attention-grabber to bring up issue of the real effects warming may have on polar bears (i.e. forced to swim farther, etc).

As someone whose entire school is populated with dolphin-huggers (nothing wrong with marine mammals.... they need a lot of help recovering and maintaining their populations with as much junk we pump into their domains), I think I keep a middle-of-the-road (i like to call it scientific) approach to climate change that some may think borders on heresy.

My point is, we need to make changes to what we pump into the seas and atmosphere.... but people probably do not need to trade in their cars for bicycles just yet. Not that it would happen anyway. Drastic change isnt going to happen unless, say, WWIII happens and we return to the stone age.

There is a lot that needs to be understood. Thats partially why i changed my major from marine biology to marine science.... because it is much more.... multi-discipline.

Ok, fact: theres more CO2 in the atmosphere than....ever? But here is another: the sun goes through discrete phases of varying activity levels. With all well-documented shifts between ice ages and normal periods, and we dont even have their exact causes pinned down reliably?

Ok! Now.... be gentle with me... no public stoning please? Besides...this is how we advance the collective knowledge of the human race... not by being told that the world is flat or round and blindly believing it... but by asking questions! Force people to find more than one way to prove their theories.

Hopefully politics aside.... These discussions are so much more interesting when we are talking just the science. but we are all nerds here, right? i know i am.

as one of those infamous professors (you know the type) delights to do..... lesse... is this the "devils advocate" smiley? :sagrin:

How about conducting this simple experiment to prove the theory of what effect CO2 is having on the atmosphere: I just can't believe the people that don't believe global warming, when watching videos and reading this forum I came up with a real simple experiment to test out the truth- go stick their head next to a Diesel engine exhaust system outlet while the enigne is reving and not just a couple of breaths possibly a good 60 seconds preferable a dump truck or semi-truck and experience the suffocation factor/difficulty of breathing and see what we are doing to the enviroment, CO2 has the same effect on the atmosphere, we are suffocating it but people don't want to believe because it is not as immediate as having your air choked off by sticking your head by an exhaust pipe, the earth is a lot larger than the small field needed for you to breath by say a 5 1/2 dia pipe with fumes exiting in which the toxins dissipate and are not visible afterwards, but by no means is the effect any different but the truth is that the blanket of smog is not escaping the atmosphere it is here choking us killing off life on the planet slowly.

How about conducting this simple experiment to prove the theory of what effect CO2 is having on the atmosphere: I just can't believe the people that don't believe global warming, when watching videos and reading this forum I came up with a real simple experiment to test out the truth- go stick their head next to a Diesel engine exhaust system outlet while the enigne is reving and not just a couple of breaths possibly a good 60 seconds preferable a dump truck or semi-truck and experience the suffocation factor/difficulty of breathing and see what we are doing to the enviroment, CO2 has the same effect on the atmosphere, we are suffocating it but people don't want to believe because it is not as immediate as having your air choked off by sticking your head by an exhaust pipe, the earth is a lot larger than the small field needed for you to breath by say a 5 1/2 dia pipe with fumes exiting in which the toxins dissipate and are not visible afterwards, but by no means is the effect any different but the truth is that the blanket of smog is not escaping the atmosphere it is here choking us killing off life on the planet slowly.

:welcome:, but please try not to be too confrontational. Our main purpose is to discuss cephalopods, and although environmentalism is something a lot of us feel strongly about, it is a bit off-topic, and we try to keep things fairly civil. Thanks!

:welcome:, but please try not to be too confrontational. Our main purpose is to discuss cephalopods, and although environmentalism is something a lot of us feel strongly about, it is a bit off-topic, and we try to keep things fairly civil. Thanks!
no hey, in no way was i directing this toward anybody or being confrontational, i was just reinerating on what I quoted above as a generalization to the people-- not us here --more so such as politicians that say or try to steer the public or legislation that there are no enviromental issues i.e global warming and that it's a hoax or that somehow infact if global warming were true that it is not having an effect on the enviroment and habitat and that it is a bunch of hooey! anyways I was just using that post to comment off of because it had a bit of the enviromental issue such as global warming in it, In no way was I attacking the thread or his/her opinion, my opinion and comment was based off the recent c-span conferences held about the enviroment and global warming, that it actually upsetting to hear and see that they are trying to block ways of trying to reverse the damage.
Anywho sorry if anyone thought i was being confrontational- relax don't be so defensive I just wanted to post a thought-- a sarcastic thought to a real situation that I'd figure all of us enviromentalist would get a laugh out of, because I feel that that's what pretty much all of us are.8-) :wink:

no hey, in no way was i directing this toward anybody or being confrontational, i was just reinerating on what I quoted above as a generalization to the people-- not us here --more so such as politicians that say or try to steer the public or legislation that there are no enviromental issues i.e global warming and that it's a hoax or that somehow infact if global warming were true that it is not having an effect on the enviroment and habitat and that it is a bunch of hooey! anyways I was just using that post to comment off of because it had a bit of the enviromental issue such as global warming in it, In no way was I attacking the thread or his/her opinion, my opinion and comment was based off the recent c-span conferences held about the enviroment and global warming, that it actually upsetting to hear and see that they are trying to block ways of trying to reverse the damage.
Anywho sorry if anyone thought i was being confrontational- relax don't be so defensive I just wanted to post a thought-- a sarcastic thought to a real situation that I'd figure all of us enviromentalist would get a laugh out of, because I feel that that's what pretty much all of us are.8-) :wink:

Thanks for clarifying... I just thought that since you quoted Fluffysquid's post, you were primarily responding to her views... also, since it was your first post here, I didn't really have a feel for where you're coming from. Sorry I didn't quite get where you're coming from, and again :welcome: ... speaking of such things, if you're up for it, if you said a few words about yourself over in the "introduce yourself" forum (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14) it could help us getting to know you, although I have to admit I skipped that and jumped right in to the forums myself...

"introduce yourself" forum (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14) it could help us getting to know you, although I have to admit I skipped that and jumped right in to the forums myself...

Tsk tsk tsk..........not that I have either!!! My excuse is I'm pre introduce yourself forum :grin:

and :welcome: starksinc

J

I came up with a real simple experiment to test out the truth- go stick their head next to a Diesel engine exhaust system outlet while the enigne is reving and not just a couple of breaths possibly a good 60 seconds preferable a dump truck or semi-truck and experience the suffocation factor/difficulty of breathing .

Isn't this just a teensy bit like saying that water must be bad for you because if you stick your head underwater for long enough you will have difficulty breathing?

Or perhaps closer would be to say that tying a plastic bag around your head for long enough will soon cause you to suffocate?

It's my personal opinion that humans are influencing climate change but I don't think you can support this with this analogy.

"Human respiration suffers in high concentrations of carbon dioxide" does NOT equal "The amount of carbon dioxide being released due to human activity is affecting the climate of the planet".

It's statements like that that tend to be siezed upon with great glee by those who do not believe humans are influencing climate change because, well...they come apart real easy.

Absolute proof? Certainly not, but more evidence of straws piling up on the camel's back.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=early-2007-saw-record-bre

This one's about a week old.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Dead-Zone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It is truly sad to hear of our planets animals suffering because of global warming. There is no doubt that global warming is real and is occurring. Some might say what is even sadder is the fact that it is a natural processes of Earth. The Earth goes through periods of temperatures increases and decreases as well as differing amounts of green house gasses. Periods known as Glacial and Interglacial, when looking at the geological time scale we find our selves leaving a Glacial period and entering an Interglacial period. A period in which green house gasses rise as well as temperatures. But this is not to transfer the blame of increasing temperatures from humans to a natural geological process. Undoubted man has played a key role in global warming. We produce tons of CO2 while destroying some of the only natural processes that remove CO2 from our air. And this is also not to take the matter totally out of our control. Although I do not know to what power we have in reversing what damage has been done or will be done. All I can hope for is that, while we may not be able to do anything, there are people out there who do appreciate these wonderful animals we have the privilege of sharing this world with. And while this might not be the only place with such creatures – this is the place where we will ever get to experience them.

Sorry if I’m repeating what has already been said, I haven’t read much of this thread. I guess I’m kind of in the wrong posting with out reading much of the others.

Actually there are a lot of things people can do to mitigate the process. Most of them seem like not enough to make a difference, but if everybody did something it would help, and there are plenty of big things that governments and corporations could do if there was the political will.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20102028/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress5aug05,0,6072218.story?coll=la-home-center

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102051.html

I could post a lot more, but as you can see not everyone has an "Oh it's too bad, but there's nothing we can do about it" attitude. We can all do something. Even changing all your lightbulbs to CF is a help. Next time you buy a vehicle, don't get a big gas guzzling emissions spewing big macho truck or suv, get a hybrid car or suv, or if your life requires that you drive a truck get the most fuel efficient one you can find. Wear more sweaters in the winter and set your thermostat to 68. Don't leave lights on, turn off computers, stereos, televisions and unplug the power sources when possible. Same thing with those ubiquitous chargers. When they are plugged in they drain power. If everybody does it, it will make a difference.

Here's a problem that had never occurred to me. Now we just have to see if the EPA will do anything.

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/spotlight/23593

And a very good reason why something must be done!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/05/climatechange

This one is really scary. :goofysca::goofysca::goofysca:

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101007EA.shtml

Here's another. Does anybody but me read these?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15298749&sc=emaf

I usually skim them, but I often find that this stuff is so poorly understood that I just get frustrated in the contradictory information on global climate issues in the press.

Caveat: This doesn't mean I particularly doubt antropogenic climate change or increased carbon levels, it just means I think we're not that cluefull on how it fits together, and where it's going in the future (whether we take any of many possible actions like this iron thing, or do nothing at all).

Ultimately, the argument that we don't understand it so we should postpone action is stupid: we understand that we're changing the atmosphere, and frankly, the odds that changing the atmosphere could do anything other than make the earth a worse (likely impossible) place for humans to live are a lot lower than the odds of a royal flush in 5-card draw.

As far as the actual article goes: plans like dumping iron into oceans to cause huge algae blooms always don't go as expected. It would be...unfortunate... to find out that this would, say, destroy 99.9% of the fish species in the ocean by some feedback we didn't expect. It maybe probably wouldn't go wrong about like playing Russian roulette probably won't kill you.

If we're going to do some crackpot mad science scheme to get rid of CO2, I kinda like this one, it's got flash (note that my blog post is rather, er, tongue in cheek): http://montyy0.livejournal.com/95956.html

Anyway, it has the advantage that we can turn off the big laser if it seems to be causing problems. If we dump iron into the ocean, what are we going to do to fix any problems that arise? Order a giant magnet from ACME corporation? We know that never ends well...

The Daisyworld/ Gaia guy Lovelock has his own drastic measures scheme: http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/from-gaia-to-geoengineering-a-radical-cure-for-global-warming/?hp

I've recently found that Lovelock is pretty smart, if a bit out there, and that he's sometimes been disgusted at the kooky places his rabid followers have taken the Gaia metaphor. But I think the concerns (like that his tubes could have the opposite of the intended effect, for example) are worthy of careful consideration.

The problem is that the concerned scientists are so used to fighting ignorant, obnoxious political opponents of the whole idea that they aren't used to admitting that some details are probably wrong. When engineers and scientists get in this mode, they often have irrational confidence in their designs and end up screwing things up and making false claims about how their systems are foolproof, as in this article I read yesterday about the failure of all 3 computers on the space station at the same time: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/5598

Anyway, I think it's complicated. Freeman Dyson is another interesting guy, who (like me, so I can respect it) enjoys being perverse to point out when there is weird group psychology biasing research. I don't know that I agree with his conclusions, but I find that reading/listening to him usually makes me feel smarter. He's got some interesting youtube clips pt1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSxubKfTBU) pt2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k69HUuyI5Mk)
and his article on heretical science (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html) is on my must-read list for everyone, even those who disagree with all his conclusions.

Edit: oh, yeah, and I was mightily impressed by the known and hypothetical atmospheric issues discussed in Ward's Out of Thin Air book, which include some hypotheses about oxygen levels driving cephalopod evolution, so it's even on-topic!

Anyway, it has the advantage that we can turn off the big laser if it seems to be causing problems. If we dump iron into the ocean, what are we going to do to fix any problems that arise? Order a giant magnet from ACME corporation? We know that never ends well...


It's obvious, if you start up a for-profit company to dump iron into the ocean and you, for instance, discover that you now have an algal bloom that has totaly upset the local ecosystem and can't be controlled by the natives life forms, then you simply start up another company and offer to those near the affected region to, for a nominal sum, introduce a more aggresive foreign consumer of algae.

Of course while you're at it you may want to start research on finding out what will consume this new species as well so that when the time comes to start up your third company you'll have a jump on any competition :twisted:

hey, fossil mollusc shells are actually useful for the global warming debate: http://tech.caltech.edu/Tech2.0/10_15_2007/article1.html

who'd'a guessed? Also, this is the first post I've ever been unsure if it goes in conservation or fossils...

Another chilling article.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLIMATE_SECURITY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-11-03-03-13-55

Now this is a twist on the usual climate change stories....Never even occurred to me.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070033338&ch=11/19/2007%207:43:00%20PM

Now this is a twist on the usual climate change stories....Never even occurred to me.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070033338&ch=11/19/2007%207:43:00%20PM

Isn't there one of those Latin phrases about logical fallacies that covers this sort of thing?

It is true that many women are limited by their cultures, and that this disempowers them. It is also true that global warming issues often cause problems for poor people living on the edge. These things together happen to mean that women in some situations may be more impacted by global warming. However, if we managed to make enormous strides in women's rights without changing our CO2 emissions, then we can achieve a stupid form of equality where we're all equally hosed. I don't think this should be the goal, and therefore I'm inclined to see this as people jockeying for support for their causes by associating two hotbutton issues rather than anything meaningful.

Or, to put it a different way, I don't think that my Y chromosome gives me any reason to be less concerned about the impact of global warming, even assuming that I'm callous enough to not care about any of my female friends. I also don't really think it's that useful to ask whether more black people, asian people, eskimos, rednecks, computer programmers, or suicide bombers would be effected by global warming. It's a global problem, so there are many scenarios where people living on coasts, in deserts, on islands, and in tundra will be impacted. Rich people might be able to move from situations that go from good to bad, or bad to worse, and poor people might not. The socioeconomic factors that lead there to be more women in that unfortunate situation are entirely unrelated to global warming, and strike me as being needlessly divisive. I suppose if this taps into the "disgruntled feminists" enough to raise awareness of global warming issues that might be good (and I suspect that there is some correlation between people sympathetic to women and to environmental issues, so it might recruit more than it alienates) but it pushes my "bad science" buttons in a big way.

This is not to say that I'm opposed to action on global warming or women's issues. I just think it's wrong to suggest that they're intrinsically connected rather that just circumstantially so, and, in fact, there might even be situations where the causes are at odds, if nothing else in whether someone giving money chooses to donate to an environmental group or a women's advocacy group. I cynically suspect this is some sort of ploy for one of those to try to extract money on the coattails of the other, in fact, since I don't see any evidence of synergy to make more net progress on either issue by linking them... unfortunately, asking to spend more money on studying this dubious link means that less money is available to target where it would be most helpful for either issue by experts who have a big-picture idea on how to address each (real, important) problem individually.

I didn't read it as any kind of a ploy, but certainly on general principles it would be much better if women in poverty and/or under various cultural restrictions were empowered. This, I think,is simply a statement of the reality of the circumstances of poor women in certain kinds of cultures. Their circumstances are dire with or without global warming. Poor people living on the edge in any culture will be more heavily impacted by worsening conditions caused by global climate change than wealthier people living in those same countries, and both rich and poor will be more heavily impacted in countries that are already struggling than those where the governments are willing and able to relocate, subsidize, pipe water in or dam water out or whatever it takes. In the Netherlands actions are already underway to cope with rising sea waters, and they are apparently willing to do whatever it takes to save their country and their people from that particular threat. Bangladesh, and many island nations will not be able to because they simply don't have the financial resources. People will be dislocated, and many will die because the "have" nations are not going to be willing to take in refugees from the "have not" nations. All countries will be facing shortages in resources, and considering the hostility facing immigrants in many nations when a lack of resources aren't really a problem you can imagine how much hostility will exist if people think they will be asked to share food and water with refugees. It is, and will continue to be a worldwide problem, but undeniably , those already living in horrendous conditions will suffer more, and in places where women are treated as somehow less than valuable members of society, they, and their children, will suffer the most. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that. Considering that the governments of the world have not been able to agree on any meaningful action to prevent global disaster I doubt that anybody is going to spend much time, and even less money, worrying about the poor and disempowered women living in poor and culturally repressive parts of the world.

I didn't read it as any kind of a ploy, but certainly on general principles it would be much better if women in poverty and/or under various cultural restrictions were empowered. This, I think,is simply a statement of the reality of the circumstances of poor women in certain kinds of cultures. Their circumstances are dire with or without global warming. Poor people living on the edge in any culture will be more heavily impacted by worsening conditions caused by global climate change than wealthier people living in those same countries, and both rich and poor will be more heavily impacted in countries that are already struggling than those where the governments are willing and able to relocate, subsidize, pipe water in or dam water out or whatever it takes. In the Netherlands actions are already underway to cope with rising sea waters, and they are apparently willing to do whatever it takes to save their country and their people from that particular threat. Bangladesh, and many island nations will not be able to because they simply don't have the financial resources. People will be dislocated, and many will die because the "have" nations are not going to be willing to take in refugees from the "have not" nations. All countries will be facing shortages in resources, and considering the hostility facing immigrants in many nations when a lack of resources aren't really a problem you can imagine how much hostility will exist if people think they will be asked to share food and water with refugees. It is, and will continue to be a worldwide problem, but undeniably , those already living in horrendous conditions will suffer more, and in places where women are treated as somehow less than valuable members of society, they, and their children, will suffer the most. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that. Considering that the governments of the world have not been able to agree on any meaningful action to prevent global disaster I doubt that anybody is going to spend much time, and even less money, worrying about the poor and disempowered women living in poor and culturally repressive parts of the world.

It's certainly possible I need to turn down the cynicism a notch. I hate to see people living in harms way no matter what their gender, and if tying these issues together somehow improves things over addressing them equally, I'm all for it, but this seems to be adding a divisive rather than unifying aspect to both issues.

In places where women are systematically disempowered, that is clearly a human rights issue whether there is global warming going on or not. If the climate problems were miraculously solved tomorrow, I don't see any direct way that would help these women. Maybe what you/the article means is that these countries won't be able to maintain the stats quo in the face of increasing problems, and if they were made to realize that, then they could stop disempowering their women and let the resulting improvement in productivity and ingenuity work toward addressing the global warming problems. I'd be fine if that could work, but it seems like the psychology of the nations that have these issues is such that they're not likely to see that as an incentive.

If global warming is going to destroy the homes and economies of many nations, that is clearly a humanitarian disaster whether the impacted countries are progressive or repressive of women. If all the inequities which disempower women were corrected tomorrow, I don't see any way that would impact the climate change problem.

Does tying these things together somehow make it more likely that the women will be less oppressed or that the impact of global climate will be mitigated? Is the implication that the conspiracy of men refuses to take global warming seriously because they think "who cares, it's just women"? It actually somewhat seems to incorrectly pass the blame for women's increased risk away from the people responsible-- if women in country X suffer or die because there are ridiculous restrictions and burdens on them, I don't want the oppressive governments or cultures to be able to say "it's not our fault, it's because of global warming." Sending the message that the way women are treated is wrong because it leads to them being more vulnerable to one particular problem is weaker than sending the message that it's wrong for all sorts of reasons, and it weakens their country's society, culture, economy, and influence in the world, which is true in countries that are hit hard by global warming disasters and those that get off relatively easy (if there turn out to be any of those.)

And with respect to global warming, I think it's vastly more important to take corrective action as soon as possible to avert as much of the problem as we can, and reduce the humanitarian impact on everyone, male or female, proactively. I suppose if whatever impact can't be prevented is handled in the best way possible, that's fine, and can include taking into account who is impacted the most, but it seems like most of the humanitarian aid is stuff like food, water, medical supplies, boats, relocation help, radios, and so forth, which is pretty gender-neutral.

I'm pretty much in agreement with everything you said, I'm just not clear on how this report claims that linking the two problems together, either in people's minds or in how the two problems should be studied, is going to make either of the problems less bad, so I'd like to spend the resources needed to fix both problems, which probably involves having a separate pool of resources to spend on each problem. I'm not sure if these countries were told that they could have global warming relief money to teach women how to swim that they'd be willing to take it, and I suspect many of them would make claims that this was wester colonialism trying to corrupt their local culture and make a big stink about refusing to take it. We could bundle some carrot-aid or stick-sanctions and say "we'll provide economic incentives for you take these steps to correct both CO2 emissions and human rights" but that runs the risk that they'll say "buzz off, colonial interfering jerks" which will have them sacrifice their poor people to save their national pride... and frequently their governments can even use this as an example of how the west is responsible for attacking their culture and refusing to give them money, which lets them distract their people from the impact of their repressive policies toward women (or toward their non-elite citizens in general).

It's not like I'm surprised by this, but damn, it's depressing!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071211/ap_on_sc/arctic_melt;_ylt=ArE9.Y4L0i7gZvS9OhzJpFa s0NUE
:sad:

Oh for frack's sake.

Inuit Fear Granting Threatened Status to Polar Bears. (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/canada_inuit_rap_us_greens_for.php)

The Inuit fear that if Washington does declare the bear a threatened species, it will deter U.S. hunters, who spend millions of dollars a year for the right to shoot the animals in the Canadian Arctic.

Environmentalists say global warming is shrinking the sea ice that polar bears use as a platform to hunt seals. The fate of the bears has received widespread media coverage.

Mary Simon, president of the Inuit Tapiriit of Canada group, said green organizations were using polar bears as an excuse to attack the administration of U.S. President George Bush over its position on climate change.

"As Inuit we fundamentally disagree with such tactics ... the polar bear is a very important subsistence, economic, cultural, conservation, management, and rights concern for Inuit in Canada," she said in a statement. (Reuters)
Look, if certain indigenous peoples want to kill a very large mammal now and again to maintain their traditions, and the population of said animal is stable and sustainable, fine. If certain indigenous peoples want to sell hunting rights to American trophy hunters, and the target animal's population numbers are stable and sustainable, well, what can I say, some wealthy American guys really need to have that all-important polar bear rug, preferably in front of a roaring fireplace, with Miss November lying on top of it. If the money actually goes to the Nunavut community, and the Inuit can shake the queasy feeling that they're pimping their heritage, fine. Selling out a species that's in deep trouble when climate change is already having an adverse effect on the local human population (coastal erosion, water rising, etc.) is either remarkably stupid or remarkably cynical. Possibly both.

As for the Nunavut Inuit's need to occasionally hunt and kill a very large animal, their claim that hunting Bowhead Whales is a proud tradition vital to maintaining the tribe's culture seems less defensible when you consider that they've largely forgotten how to do it.

Nunavut Whale-Hunters: Yep, We Suck (http://www.nunatsiaq.com/archives/back-issues/week/70314.html#4)

Wildlife officials want Nunavut communities to carefully plan their next bowhead whale hunt, wherever it may be.

That's why the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board has authorized just a single kill over the next two years.

"What we were hoping is that if the planning doesn't occur this year, at least they'll have another year to plan for the '98 season," NWMB Chairman Ben Kovic said this week.

Participants in last year's hunt in Repulse Bay, the first since 1979, ran into a lot of problems before they were able to land their whale.

At one point the whale sank after having been shot hundreds of times, but later resurfaced after its body gassed up.

Some Inuit said they were embarrassed by the botched hunt. (DWANE WILKIN, Nunatsiaq News, March 14, 1997)

The logical next step will be to sell whale-hunting licenses to Americans. I'm sure there's someone with a Barrett .50 caliber rifle itching to put some baleen above the fireplace.

Clem

Hey, nothing better than a big piece of whale blubber between your cheek and gum.
and, it doesn't cause cancer!

Oh for frack's sake.

Inuit Fear Granting Threatened Status to Polar Bears. (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/canada_inuit_rap_us_greens_for.php)


Look, if certain indigenous peoples want to kill a very large mammal now and again to maintain their traditions, and the population of said animal is stable and sustainable, fine. If certain indigenous peoples want to sell hunting rights to American trophy hunters, and the target animal's population numbers are stable and sustainable, well, what can I say, some wealthy American guys really need to have that all-important polar bear rug, preferably in front of a roaring fireplace, with Miss November lying on top of it. If the money actually goes to the Nunavut community, and the Inuit can shake the queasy feeling that they're pimping their heritage, fine. Selling out a species that's in deep trouble when climate change is already having an adverse effect on the local human population (coastal erosion, water rising, etc.) is either remarkably stupid or remarkably cynical. Possibly both.

As for the Nunavut Inuit's need to occasionally hunt and kill a very large animal, their claim that hunting Bowhead Whales is a proud tradition vital to maintaining the tribe's culture seems less defensible when you consider that they've largely forgotten how to do it.

Nunavut Whale-Hunters: Yep, We Suck (http://www.nunatsiaq.com/archives/back-issues/week/70314.html#4)


The logical next step will be to sell whale-hunting licenses to Americans. I'm sure there's someone with a Barrett .50 caliber rifle itching to put some baleen above the fireplace.

Clem

This is a lot like a video I watched a few days ago, it was filmed in 1996 so I don't know how relevant it is to the current situations, it was Kingdom of The Seahorse. A large part of it was about an island in the Phillipines where seahorses are a very important export because of the Asian market. It is tradition for them to collect large amounts of them, but the numbers were dwindling. A marine biologist went there and had trouble getting the villagers to see her point at first (white devil wanting to steal their gold! :roflmao:), but they eventually started a breeding program and an anti-poaching program. They still harvest a certain number, but the pregnant males are always taken to a contained breeding net so that they can release their babies when the time comes instead of sending the pregnant male to become "Medicine" (pssshhh) in a chinese store. And the program has grown and they were trying to spread it to other islands in the area, as well as starting a kind of scholarship program for one of the villages kids each year.

It was a bit outdated, already. But it really opened my eyes as to how bad the seahorse export problem is. The amount of seahorses killed for the "medicinal" trade alone was insane. Apparently the Asian market gets them by the ton almost daily.

Ok, I havent kept up with this thread much (started before I joined, long posts, etc... not able to sit still long enough to read it all :bonk:), and only now just skimmed it, so i dont really know where you are in the conversation right now, but personaly, I dont much believe in "global warming", I believe in climate change. What I mean is, we havent gathered enough data from the earth to make these observations that we are the only reason tempuratures are rising. If you have heard of the 17 year cicada (every 17 years an insect called cicada comes out in a HUGE MASS, and the noise is almost unbearable) well, it kind of goes in waves, how do we know this isn't what happens with the earth tempurature-we dont, we dont have enough data, this whole ice in the artic telling tempuratures from the past works I guess, but it only goes back what 20-30 million years...the earth has been around for BILLIONES of years, how do we know the earths tempurature doesnt fluctuate every 17 billion years. Or look at it this way, in the midst of all this debate about the pollution destroying the ozone layer, a ozone hole above the antartic thats been there for longer than weve had oil or gas is now, at the peak of pollution starting to close (now you dont hear about that do you...see bellow). We can prove the earth is round, clouds are made of water vapor, we revolve around the sun, not the other way around, soil is brown, leaves are green (not really, but for this purpose :wink:), etc. but we cant prove global warming. pollititions (yup... All Gore) are blowing it up to get noticed, NASA actually has tonnes of research papers/studies conducted that say global warming isn't what its made to be, but the handfull that point to global warming as the problem of everything are the only ones you see or hear about. NASA does this to earn funding from the government which they wouldnt get otherwise...sad really.

Im not saying there's no pollution or that we dont need to lead more environmentally friendly life styles, but this whole global warming thing is no where near as bad as it's made to be. I have actually heard people...people in high places too, saying something like the movie Day After Tommorow is possible... NO WHERE NEAR

Not that this really matters, but my dad is a weatherman and a colonel in the air force, so i guess Im kind of influenced by him... actually, it probably does matter, because what I hear from him is the story as it is, not blown up by some crazy, power hungry polition (yes...Al Gore again...)

look at this video, it pretty much sums it up.

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=DRaeEIN5Sh8&rel=1&eurl=http%3A//globalwarmingheartland.org/&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/DRaeEIN5Sh8/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskIQ8IFCIfQ4VJBYoFgnv6Yj

At the risk of being harsh, that video is a propaganda piece. Admittedly, so is "An Inconvenient Truth." From my limited understanding of climate science, although Al Gore takes some liberties (e.g. the complaint that CO2 is invisible so showing smokestacks venting smoke or steam is technically incorrect) his presentation meshes fairly well with what a large number of climate scientists believe. But really, the main point is that this should not be a popularity contest: public policy on issues like this should be decided by a combination of scientific consensus and risk analysis. There is certainly some uncertainly in exactly what is going on in the field, and some people make some interesting arguments about how to interpret and predict based on the measurements (Freeman Dyson, for example.) However, the uncertainty doesn't necessarily imply that the best course of action is to assume "until I see proof beyond all doubt, we should stay the course." There is relatively undisputed evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activity has had an impact on the atmosphere. Since we have never seen the effect of human activity on the earth like this before, we are in unexplored territory. As it happens, human beings are very happy in the global environment that's existed for the past few million years; there have been plenty of times in the history of the earth where human life wouldn't be possible at all because of the atmospheric makeup.

Just to dissect an element of the video that I think I can safely call out, though: the fact that water vapor is a more important greenhouse gas in the instantaneous effect has almost nothing to do with the argument made. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere fluctuates on a fundamentally different timescale than CO2, since water tends to do things like fall out of the sky as snow or rain, and be renewed by evaporation. CO2, on the other hand, has a relatively slow half-life. Also, the water vapor cycle has been more-or-less in balance since the last ice age, but a small amount (e.g. 5-10%) change in the greenhouse gas levels from CO2 or water vapor could change that balance, since if the CO2 was enough to raise the ambient temperature, it's possible that this would cause more evaporation, leading to higher water vapor levels in the atmosphere, leading to more greenhouse effect from that, in a snowball effect (also, more dissolved CO2 could be released from the ocean into the atmosphere, and the albedo of the earth could be reduced by melting snow revealing darker material under it.) The video's "alternative explanation" of the greenhouse effect is an even more gross oversimplification than Al Gore's, since it shows 100% of incoming sunlight reflecting, rather than some being absorbed by the ground and oceans, which is misleading.

Certainly, it's a fair argument that we don't fully understand all of the things going on. However, from a "what's a good idea" standpoint, the atmosphere and albedo and vegetation biomass and outgassing of sequestered carbon from fossil fuels as CO2 are causing many of the driving forces to diverge further and further from the way things have been for the entire time that the planet has been well-suited to human life. Since we don't have complete information, it seems to me that the wisest course of action is to avoid straying into unknown territory that has an unknown risk of changing the biosphere in substantial ways, since, really, we're pretty much in the best possible place for our comfort and survival where we are, so any change that happens is likely to be bad news for the human race, and probably most mammals. The silver lining is that cephalopods have proven that they can survive through far more drastic changes in atmospheric oxygen and CO2 levels (and asteroid/comet strikes, and volcanic activity) so perhaps if we screw things up badly enough we'll open up an opportunity for the cephalopods archaeologists of the future to be amused at our peculiar primate technologies and curious artworks. Still, I'd sort of like to err on the side of caution for the immediate future.

As an unrelated criticism, I've never heard of "the heartland institute" as a scientific center, and about half of the talking heads in that seem to have dubious credentials. There's one MIT guy, what, two profs from Alabama and Ottawa, one National Weather Service guy, and a few of people with credentials that sound like "professional expert from the made-up-institute of we-know-how-to-sound-smart." I know a fair number of geologists, atmospheric chemists, environmental engineers, planetary scientists, astronomers, NASA scientists, marine scientists, and so forth, and I don't know any who express the sort of view expressed in the "heartland" video, and quite a few who think that Al Gore's version is oversimplified but gets the big picture close to rights. An exception to this is Freeman Dyson (who I have met briefly, but I doubt he'd remember me) who is somewhat skeptical, but more that people are too negative about things we might be able to do to avert disaster than that we should avoid doing anything. You might argue that I know a bunch of hippie-dippy ivory tower liberal intellectuals, but they're also some of the best and brightest of American science, and the qualified scientists appear to be about 90-99% in agreement with the Al Gore version than the "heartland institute" version.

A few interesting links:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html

(I also recommend Peter Ward's book Out of Thin Air which is only indirectly about the dynamics of atmospheric composition, but which I found very intriguing in its description of the historical dance between oxygen and CO2 levels, temperature, and life on earth.)

and I want to single out this one particularly:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

because Science is the premiere journal published in the United States ( Nature is published in the UK, and is of similar stature) for representation of the academic consensus of professional scientists on any topic related to scientific inquiry. They don't tend to shy away from legitimate scientific controversy, and they put a great deal of effort into avoiding dishonesty, misrepresentation, and inaccuracy. In studying almost 1000 papers on this topic published in the forums in which real professional scientists stake their reputations and report their lives' work, there were no publications whatsoever that argued against the scientific consensus as defined in that article.

I don't exactly mean this to be an attack: I'm glad that you're thinking for yourself, and I encourage you to learn as much as you can and decide for yourself. I find both the "heartland" video and "An Inconvenient Truth" to be oversimplified, misleading, alarmist, unscientific, and silly, and I think it's pathetic that we're making public policy decisions on the shallow propaganda version of this. And, I know how you feel, since my dad has been involved in the defense industry, and often gets frustrated when reality in that area is misrepresented by snooty academics. I trust and respect my dad, and enjoy having intelligent discussions on what he believes and why, and get irritated when I run into people who make simple-minded arguments that I believe are justified more by knee-jerk political views than objective reality, so emotionally I can very much relate to where you're coming from...

I don't expect you or anyone to automatically agree with what I say, so I hope that this is taken as an attempt to help you discover new information and consider why I might have the viewpoint that I have, and that perhaps I and others who share that have put some effort into having an informed opinion.

:yinyang::read::smile:

Sadly, another article about how we're killing the oceans.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3953924.ece

Come on. We all know global warming doesn't exist. Last week it was 112 here, and now it is snowing in Flagstaff.

Must be a fluke.

Great news on the solar front! Solar power and electric cars just got a lot more possible.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html