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Global Warming

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11:26 / 20.03.02

Here's an interesting article on global warming, in case anyone's interested.

quote:An enormous floating ice shelf in Antarctica that has existed since the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago collapsed this month with staggering speed during one of the warmest summers on record there, scientists say.

The ice shelf was the size of Rhode Island, the smallest US state.

Rhode fucking Island.

11:35 / 20.03.02

I heard it was about the size of Luxembourg plus 98% of Bahrain...

11:52 / 20.03.02

By itself this might just be a random incident, but I think there is definitely a pattern. Global warming, in a complicated way, is with us. Thing is, I doubt the US will pay much attention to it until they lose a couple of cities to rising water levels. Given their economic and political power, I reckon things will keep getting worse till then.

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:53 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Lurid Archive:
Thing is, I doubt the US will pay much attention to it until they lose a couple of cities to rising water levels.At which time, you're all invited for a snorkelling holiday in Sydney. Gah.

14:36 / 20.03.02

We'll all just take Canada as if it was ours in the first place...send the frenchies back home, and let the mexicans have the former US...and start diggin for more oil in what used to be mexico.

16:04 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Lurid Archive:
....I doubt the US will pay much attention to it until they lose a couple of cities to rising water levels.

A major disease outbreak might convince enough people too. But by then it'll be too late. Arguably, it's too late already; scientists point out that the restrictions on emmisions in the Kyoto treaty aren't enough to reverse the course of global warming, and we can't even pass that.

I think our best hopes now are that fuel cells will become more economical than internal combustion engines and that we’ll find some heavy-industry solution for scrubbing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere, such as hastening plankton bloom with massive iron infusions into seawater.

16:51 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Chuckling Duck:

I think our best hopes now are that fuel cells will become more economical than internal combustion engines

But where will we get the energy for the fuel cells. It all goes back to burning stuff and emmitting CO2, I think the wind and running waters have the answer...We just need to maximize their output.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:36 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Pimpbot 2000:

But where will we get the energy for the fuel cells. It all goes back to burning stuff and emmitting CO2

This is true; however, fuel cells (I assume we're talking about rechargeable batteries here) would be more efficient and less polluting when used in cars an other transport. This is because the infernal combustion engine is a darn sight less efficient at producing energy than a power station, and more efficient at pumping crap into the atmosphere.

quote:Originally posted by Pimpbot 2000:
I think the wind and running waters have the answer...We just need to maximize their output.

Absolutely. Solar energy, for example, has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years and can now make use of even the weakest sunlight. I don't know about America, but there's a company in Britain that will come round and cover the roof of your house with solar panels; the energy provided is more than enough to meet most domestic needs. The home remains connected to the national grid, so that during the day excess energy is sold to the power company and the house can revert back to ordinary mains electricity at night.

As you point out, wind and wave technology are also improving steadily; wave technology is actually more efficient than most people realise.

20:07 / 20.03.02

While I'm totally on the side of minimising our impact on the planet I have to say I'm sceptical about our impact as far as global warming is concerned. Do you know how much gas a single volcanic eruption spews out? Or have you seen the wild temperature swings that have occured way before mankind was a twinkle in mother natures eye?

There seems to be an underlying assumption that everything we do is important and has a terrific impact. Sure we may be wiped out (and we could very well do that ourselves) but the earth will carry on regardless... More likely is that we'll wipe out everything except that which we eat. Even then we could probably find a way to produce food artificially. This would be really weird (from our current perspective anyway). A planet with just us and our associated diseases.

I'll stop being cynical now.

05:49 / 21.03.02

Here's a picture. It makes it seem a lot worse than it sounds:

07:23 / 21.03.02

Cheering stuff.

quote: Thing is, I doubt the US will pay much attention to it until they lose a couple of cities to rising water levels

...and then it's going to take a long time to a) reduce emissions and b) wait for that reduction in emissions to take effect.

Even if the temperature went back down, we don't know how fast the ice would reform. Now where did I put that snorkel?

Oh, and Sleeperservice, you are of course entirely right to say that this is the merest of blips on a planetary, geohistoric way. The Earth will outlive us all. The problem is that to any actual species you care to name it's a blip the size of, well, Rhode Island. I don't think we should be too detatched about that, frankly.

[ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: Flame On ]

14:02 / 21.03.02

There's a big debate about global warming. The debate is whether we are the cause of it or whether it is a natural process.

Well, guess what. The scientific debate is over.

It turns out that global warming isn't caused by humans.

How do I know?

Mars is experiencing global warming.

So it's not just Earth.

14:07 / 21.03.02

That doesn't follow, Lionheart.

Climate change, including global warming, is a natural process. The question is, are we speeding that process up? The speed itself would be a problem, not just the change.

15:03 / 21.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Pimpbot 2000:
But where will we get the energy for the fuel cells. It all goes back to burning stuff and emmitting CO2, I think the wind and running waters have the answer...We just need to maximize their output.

Hydrogen (the ideal fuel for fuel cells) can obtained from water using an electrical current, which means that we can make it with solar power, wind power, water power, and so on. Also of interest, a research team is in the process of engineering a strain of algae that produces mass quantities of hydrogen. There’s potential there.

The real problem in implementing fuel cells is storing and transporting hydrogen. Some progress has been made in dissolving hydrogen into liquids, but I don’t know how practical any of those solutions are.

15:16 / 21.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Lionheart:
There's a big debate about global warming. The debate is whether we are the cause of it or whether it is a natural process. Well, guess what. The scientific debate is over.

Why? Because you say it is? I guess the climatologists should stop gathering weather data, modeling weather and publishing their results in peer-reviewed journals, now that you’ve spoken.

quote:Originally posted by Lionheart:
Mars is experiencing global warming.
So it's not just Earth.

So is Venus. In fact, studies of Venus are what made us aware of the greenhouse effect in the first place. If you think this proves that global warming on Earth has nothing to do with industrial gasses, you’re not thinking logically.

Excuse me if I sound snippy, but this is one of my pet peeves. Ten years ago, corporate puppet researchers denied global warming was happening, and media shills like Limbaugh poo-pooed the warnings from the scientific community. Now that global warming is too widespread to deny, the same bastards are now denying that it’s the result of human activity. We’re standing on the brink of ecological disaster, and they’re muddying the waters out of self-interest.

Well, it pisses me off. They’re as bad as the Holocaust deniers, except they’re lying before rather than after the fact.

15:31 / 21.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Sleeperservice:
Do you know how much gas a single volcanic eruption spews out?

Yes. Not nearly enough to account for recent climate changes. You’ve been suckered with a popular red herring.

From a layperson-friendly global warming FAQ

quote:Is the recent warming caused by volcanic activity?

Volcanoes have a dual effect on climate. In the short term, they exert a net *cooling* effect due to their emissions of sulphur dioxide. The cooling effect depends on the composition of the volcanic emissions (particularly sulphur content) and on the location of the volcanoes (high latitude volcanoes tend to have a greater effect. The cooling effect of some of the most important recent volcanoes is provided by Volcano World.
Volcanoes do also emit CO2, and massive eruptions in the past have emitted enough CO2 to cause climate change. However, in the recent climatic record, volcanic emissions have been much lower. Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 10E12 mol/yr from volcanoes. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times. Analyses of temperature changes over the past 1000 years also show that the rise in temperature this century can't be explained by solar or volcanic activity (see below).

I really recommend this FAQ as a good basis for any further discussion here. Please read it, all of you, before you feel compelled to comment further. It is well-annotated with links to studies and articles.

That way we don't have to endlessly hash over the basics.

16:05 / 21.03.02

I don't think Lionheart is poo-pooing the entire construct of global warming. S/he is indirectly questioning whether the process of the "greenhouse effect" is in fact causally relateable to industrial emissions.

I'd say this is a pretty valid question, given that twenty-thirty years of thorough meterological data over the course of six billion years of climactic flux makes for a pretty big question mark. A 12,000 year-old ice shelf sounds anicent and impressive, compared to a civlization time scale, but is a pretty short duration on a geophysical one.

Thus in context, I'm not sure what you mean by "thinking logically."

I remain a fence-sitter in this argument on the pure-scientific level, since ultimately it's the bashing together of climactic models that really can't be validated, but am far less of a mugwump about emissions protocols. There should be more stringent controls over emissions quantities. In the name of self-interest, just in case.

Furthermore, I'd say that asking this question doesn't necessarily mean one is on the side of corporations. There's a difference between individual skepticism of loose data-based claims and the larger process of tailoring science data to fit cynical ends. Which, by the way, is not solely the provenance of money-grubbing rightists. Scientists hired by an environmentalist (or health advocacy, or anti-gun) agency are hired to "prove" the position of their patron, or they lose funding.

16:21 / 21.03.02

Wow, I didn't expect so many replies to pop up sp quickly.

quote:I guess the climatologists should stop gathering weather data, modeling weather and publishing their results in peer-reviewed journals, now that you’ve spoken.

Why? That has nothing to do with the conversation. That data gathering is very useful for a lot of purposes.

Why I said that the debate was over is because the entire solar system is heating up.

Now, Venus is heating up because its atmosphere traps gases. Venus has pretty much been heating up for a long time.

Mars has just begun heating up in the last century. It hasn't been heating up because of its atmosphere but because something's going on in the solar system.

I'm not denying that our emmisions might be contributing to the problem. Even if they aren't we still should lower the emissions because we need to lower polution. Sometime ago, in the past few months, New Scientist reproted that more people die each year from pollution caused by cars than from car accidents themselves.

The thing is that emmisions or not, the whole solar system is heating up. And that means the whole Earth is heating up. Now, what does that mean?

From what I've read so far, it means a new ice age and a lot of floods.

Which is obviously bad, but do we fight against nature or do we adapt to it?

16:42 / 21.03.02

Lionheart - got an article reference? This is the first I've heard of the solar system warming. Is it a matter of solar activity, and what kind? Do you know the general rate of T increase?

I have freaky sci-fi visions of the Jupiter's hydrogen atmosphere going all ka-plooey, or the distant frozen-methane planets becoming gas giants.

Oh lord, solar meterology...what kind of stochastic changes does a ball of hydrogen-helium-based plasma undergo in it's "climate."

18:33 / 21.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Lionheart:
I'm not denying that our emmisions might be contributing to the problem.

Well, what you said was:

quote:Originally posted by Lionheart:
It turns out that global warming isn't caused by humans.

Now you’re backtracking, saying OK, maybe the Earth IS warming up due to industrial emmissions.

Now, I don’t know anything about the warming of the solar system--I haven’t seen any studies, nor did you cite any--but I do know that recent meteorlogical data agrees with the predictions of climate models that forecast a rise in global temperatures due to the greenhouse effect of industrial emissions.

It’s rather early for you to declare the debate over. It certainly isn’t over on the global stage.

Read the FAQ, would you?

18:40 / 21.03.02

quote:Originally posted by [monkey - greatest sage of all]:
I don't think Lionheart is poo-pooing the entire construct of global warming. S/he is indirectly questioning whether the process of the "greenhouse effect" is in fact causally relateable to industrial emissions.

I'd say this is a pretty valid question, given that twenty-thirty years of thorough meterological data over the course of six billion years of climactic flux makes for a pretty big question mark. ...Thus in context, I'm not sure what you mean by "thinking logically."

But Lionheart was not saying that recent rises in geological temperatures were within the expected range of variation. What Lionheart said, o most mindful of monkeys, was that a recent increase in the temperature on Mars (citation, please?) proves that global warming isn’t caused by humans.

This is where I drag logic into it: whether or not Mars’ temperature is rising cannot tell us whether or not the greenhouse effect is being triggered on Earth due to industrial emissions, because the Earth’s temperature could be rising from BOTH effects.

You’re right that corporate scientists aren’t the only ones subject to professional and financial pressure. What I find so convincing about the UN findings on global warming is that they are so well accepted in the general scientific community, outside the two camps of climatologists.

I apologize again for my gruffness on this topic. I’m not a very good advocate on this issue simply because I’m too emotionally involved with it. I hope you can understand why.

18:48 / 21.03.02

In the last 50 years human beings (esp. us Americans) have used up more natural resources than in the previous 50,000 years we've been on this planet, and our use of those non-renewable resources is increasing exponentially.

In West Virginia, we are blowing up entire mountains--leveling them--to get at their coal. Which then we burn here in the great coal-burning state of Ohio, so we can send acid-rain valentines to our friends in New York, whose weather patterns are following the contours of the models for global warming that have been predicted gosh since I was in jr. high school. Meantime, the population of the planet has doubled in my lifetime.

Yes, the earth will abide, the universe will not miss us in any explicit way. but human consciousness may very well be the manifestation of the universe's desire to reflect on itself--we can't know. or maybe its the humpback whale's consciousness. or maybe both. what a shame to kill that off, let alone all those other species, if there's any chance we can change it.

sustaining the levels of consumption is only possible with the constant reminders provided by the $190 billion/year advertising industry (in the US). that's a lot of time, money and energy. let's get our hands on it, somehow.

alas.

unheimlich manoeuvre

01:57 / 22.01.05

*please note old thread*

telegraph 21/01/2005)

Evidence has been building that the impact of a comet or asteroid triggered the extinction. But two teams point to an alternative culprit - global warming triggered by greenhouse gases from volcanoes.

or here Independent 21 January 2005

...

I really don't know as much about this as I'd like. Keep meaning to read the Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg.

00:37 / 21.03.06

I admit that my resurrection of this thread is somewhat unoriginal....

Has anybody read Michael Crichton's State of Fear. This book is very anti-ecoterrorist. It posits using a 50 page bibliography (annotated somewhat) that science knows next to nothing about global warming and that it cannot be conclusively proved that it exists. Crichton's arguments are surprisingly good. Using a variety of actual government acquired data, he shows that the increased temperature change of the planet is less than half of a percent, while metropolises experienced a far greater degree of temp rise. Interesting.

He also states that there are just as many glaciers and icebergs as 100 years previously. If they are breaking, he says, it is from oil companies purposefully doing it.

Furthermore, he thinks that losing 100 species a year is acceptable considering we discover 1000s of species every year (not just bugs either!)

As a species, we know next to nothing about the long term cycles of the past and future. Specifically, we can't say that a succession of hurricanes in the Southern states is not cyclical because our data does not reach back far enough. We cannot predict it either because the data is not sophisticated enough, either.

There are other pieces of "evidence" he provides, and I must admit that it is extremely compelling. Crichton is extremely disapproving of eco-friendly idealists who think we should all go back to "basics" (his argument is that going back to basics convienantly forgets the medical breakthroughs we have achieved) Crichton also derides the companies that pay for the research, no matter what ideological side. Science should not be tainted by money and allegiances, he says.

It's too bad that the book is largely Republican in its worldview, as well as being populated with extremely one-dimensional characters. State of Fear says that the media creates a state of fear in the citizens and subjects in order to create a state of consumption of anything and everything.

I strongly urge people to read this book only for the science. It has really opened my eyes to global warming. I am not fully convinced by EITHER side, but I do lean towards human-activity-caused-global-warming. We have fucked up as a species.

02:42 / 21.03.06

State of Fear says that the media creates a state of fear in the citizens and subjects in order to create a state of consumption of anything and everything.

What a remarkably bizarre notion. Is the idea that fearful people, assuming that they're screwed anyway, will simply buy stuff to comfort themselves instead of trying to do something to actually mitigate the threat?

I'd postulate that the exactly opposite "everything is shiny and fine, go about your business" party line does more to promote consumption, since it would make sense for people to be more conservative with their spending if they think that things might become unstable. Or so I would hope.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:01 / 21.03.06

Mirror- quite. In times of threat (as opposed to times of war, when defence investment increases) the markets generally suffer. Look at the indices immediately post-911 for a fairly obvious demonstration of this.

12:28 / 21.03.06

It has really opened my eyes to global warming. I am not fully convinced by EITHER side, but I do lean towards human-activity-caused-global-warming. We have fucked up as a species.

I am confused, matt. This bestseller has "opened your eyes to global warming" in what way, precisely? You recommend that we all give our money to Crichton and read his book but to what end? You appear to be unconvinced by his arguments yourself, to judge by your last two sentences, unlike Dubya and others of his stripe, who are apparently big fans.

No shortage of scientists, as opposed to former medics turned thriller writers, dissecting Crichton's arguments and reviewing his book through a red mist, btw.

I'm not convinced either. But then I haven't recovered from my disappointment that I couldn't really be transported back to mediaeval France because Timeline was a work of fiction too.

12:28 / 21.03.06

Yeah, it's more developed in the book than my bizarre sentence would imply. I wrote that out from memory. I don't necessarily agree with the notion, but there is more to it.

12:42 / 21.03.06

Whoops cross post, there, Xoc. My post is meant to be above yours. Oh well.

You seem incredibly dismissive of Crichton, Xoc. I am fully fully aware that State of Fear is science fiction. I am not fully convinced by Crichton's arguments save one: our data does not reach back far enough to create longlasting models of the farflung future. Any model that we accurately create for global warming is only within 50 to 100 years in the future. That's what I meant when I said it "opened my eyes". We still know very little about the climate in the longterm.

I refuse to say that global warming is a "nonproblem" as Crichton says it is. I also refuse to say that humans do not have an effect on the environment. To posit both would be ludicrous.

What I was merely trying to add to the debate was that there are people who think global warming is a nonproblem. I'm sorry that was garbled.

You recommend that we all give our money to Crichton and read his book but to what end?
I like to read "technothrillers" and I like Crichton (until that is, he got really Republican on us). I also like stimulated debate about global warming. I also think people should sometimes read things that don't necessarily agree with the reader, like for example stuff by Ann Coulter. She's got her facts wrong just as much as Crichton does.

Your links are very fascinating, Xoc. I will definitely read in more depth later today.

A fall of geckos

14:45 / 21.03.06

I find State of Fear problematic as - I believe - it uses it's fictional status to get away with poor research. Crichton makes selective use of data to back his argument without citing the complete studies which often contradict what he's saying (for example his use of weather station data). Additionally there are direct errors in his interpretation - some of which are highlighted in Xoc's links, some can be found here on the realclimate site. I've been told that several of the studies Chichton makes extensive use of are studies that were sponsored by the oil industry. I haven't got a copy of the book here so I can't check on that, but I would be interested to hear if it's correct or not.

All of this is pretty forgivable in a fictional book. However, despite it's fictional nature, Climate of Fear is being taken seriously by a large number of people.

Incidentally, I am not trying to be dismissive of techno fiction - I'm a fan of Neil Stevenson and Kim Stanley Robinson*. I'm just a little worried by the fact that Crichton appears to be regarded as having the same level of technical expertise as scientists who professionally work in this field – for example he was recently summoned to the pentagon as an expert witness on climate change.

I think there’s a lot to debate in the global warming area, but I simply wouldn't trust Chrichton on this issue.

* Kim Stanley Robinson approaches global warming from the other side in his novel Forty Signs of Rain. I'm not criticising this book here partially because of the thread-drift, but mainly because I haven't come across it being held up as an expert source on the subject whereas I’ve recently heard State of Fear used to justify a family owning two SUVs etc…

21:23 / 21.03.06

Fear not, I hear Bono will be helping to raise funds to launch his vast collection of shades into orbit. These shades will protect us from the heat of the sun and balance out the effects of global warming.

The bonosphere will be located 2 million miles in orbit from earth, which is about the same distance as bonos sense of reality.

Bono saves earth again. Don't thank god, thank bono.

22:56 / 21.03.06

does anyone know much about methane?

it is one of the gases cited with heavy contibution to global warming. many reports want to blame an increase in farming, particulalrly cattle, as contributing significantly to global warming. but doesn't methane exist on most planets with water and volcanic activity? my real question, i guess, is just what percentage of the atmosphere's methane is produced by human activity, as opposed to what would be there anyway through natural cycles.

for example, media articles are fond of saying things like, 'this contributes to x% of *man's* production of methane released into the atmosphere'. this would be a bad thing if man's overall contribution is significant; but is it?

04:03 / 22.03.06

Another greenhouse gas, methane, comes from landfills, coal mines, oil and gas operations, and agriculture; it represents 9 percent of total emissions. Nitrous oxide (5 percent of total emissions), meanwhile, is emitted from burning fossil fuels and through the use of certain fertilizers and industrial processes. Human-made gases (2 percent of total emissions) are released as byproducts of industrial processes and through leakage.

I remeber reading somewhere that methane is 20 to 60 more potent as a green house gas.

Methane in the atmosphere does not remain long, persisting for about 10 years before being oxidized to CO2 (a greenhouse gas that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years).

Releases of methane from melting oceanic clathrates have caused severe environmental impacts in the past. The methane in oceanic clathrates has been estimated at 10,000 billion tons.

55 million years ago a global warming chain reaction (probably started by volcanic activity) melted oceanic clathrates. It was one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events in geologic history.

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. The west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tonnes of methane. Local atmospheric levels of methane on the Siberian shelf are now 25 times higher than global concentrations.

07:56 / 22.03.06

I think the science aspects are well covered by sources such as the aforementioned Realclimate: 'Climate science from climate scientists' blog, their FAQ, and IPCC reports (Climate change 2001: the scientific basis, and others.)

The psychological aspects of how humans deal with climate change are interesting as well. The "go out and buy an SUV" response is well documented, according to Joanna Macy's speech in Oxford last year, 'Facing climate change and other great adventures' (transcript). When people grasp the threat, the survival reflex is triggered, and people can react in ways that add to the problem. As she says - we need that survival reflex working for the survival of the human race, not against it.

George Marshall of COIN, (the climate outreach and information network based in Oxford) spoke very well in one of their speaker sessions last year, 'Sleepwalking into disaster' (transcript). He asked, what is it about the nature of the climate change threat that makes it so difficult to grasp, and to act on?

George Monbiot spoke at the same event about denial of the reality of climate change by recourse to so-far imaginary technological solutions: 'Climate change - a crisis of collective denial' (transcript of a very similar talk), and had some good things to say. (Although he chose to make part of his contribution an anti-religious rant which seemed a strange choice to me since I estimate half of the people in the large audience were there, as climate change activists, because of churches' involvement in Climate change and global care/responsibility issues e.g. Operation Noah! Amusing isn't it when atheists insist that their reading of scripture is the only possible correct one? At least religious folk have a well-developed metaphor set to engage people in metanoia/revolution of the heart and changed life consequent to it.)

13:58 / 22.03.06

I completely agree that Monbiot's attack on Christianity (I think his attack is limited to christianity, rather than being a general attack on religion....though I'm sure he doesn't have much time for other religions either) is weak, to the point of being pathetic. This kind of facile psychologising is pretty unconvincing given the diversity of christian opinion.

Having said that, his points about the need to reduce consumption and our self destructive urge to avoid that are sadly quite convincing.

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