26 replies to this topic

[Galaxy613]

I sort-of agree with this, but I haven't seen much stuff other then this video really support this view. I basicly think that it is not man that's causing this warm up, and I know how everyone WANTS so very hard to believe man is the problem, but I blame the sun for this warm up. We've even seen other planets (forgot the link dangit D: ) being heated up... either global warming on our planet is worse then we thought, or it isn't us that's making the planetS warmer.

Frankly, we've only been recording weather for how long? 80-200 years? This planet has been around HOW long? Even by Christian standards of 10-5k years, we barely have seen it all. This could just be a part of a cyclic weather pattern going on for thousands of years.

This is not to say we should be irresponsible to our environment! I'm all for keeping endangered species alive, keeping pollutants out of the air. (Have you SEEN LA, and other California cities?! And China is even worse!) But I think the biggest solar object in our solar system is the thing to blame. I mean, the biggest planet in our solar system is still small next to it!

Edited by Galaxy613, 23 March 2008 - 06:51 PM.

[Uncle Hammer]

Very comparable to zeitgiest but on a different level. Another view on a very mainstream media topic.

[Thom]

Meh. We know enough about chemistry to know that increasing the concentration of certain gases in the atmosphere will cause an overall increase in global temperatures via the greenhouse effect. Anyone claiming that we are not warming the earth will have to explain what opposing effect is counteracting it. Anyone arguing against anthropogenic climate change without explaining what's counteracting it either is merely claiming that the effect is inexclusively anthropogenic, is simply hoping people won't have the chemistry background, like young-earth creationists handwaving away the entire science of geology with a "There's so much that we don't know", or believes in magic.

Otherwise, you're left with the Massive Liberal Conspiracy argument, which is no more persuasive with climate change than it is with evolution.

Edited by Thom, 23 March 2008 - 09:25 PM.

[CaptainSlug]

Meh. We know enough about chemistry to know that increasing the concentration of certain gases in the atmosphere will cause an overall increase in global temperatures via the greenhouse effect.

Science can't really make up its mind definitively as to what the underlying process is. Some say it's the greenhouse effect (which has less to do with the Ozone and more to do with the composition of the whole atmosphere), some say its an alteration of the distribution or quantity of cloud cover, and some say it's an alteration of algae cycles.

Whatever the chain of causation it's still a really bad idea to continue at the current level of carbon output and to continue relying on such a tremendously inefficient means of basic transportation. Efficiency has to be measured in not just the energy input and output of the fuel you're putting into the engine, but in the total cost of the pollution created by the creation, service, and replacement of all of the components of a vehicle.

How to change things on the other hand is a much more difficult question to answer. We will NEVER stop using fossil fuels because they are in or involved with almost every product you buy. What needs to change are the cars everyone drives, because they're the biggest offenders. But getting all of them changed is going to be an extremely difficult process because of the existing business and infrastructures involved in their creation and facilitation.

Current gasoline engines are EXTREMELY dirty and car markers will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo going. This is because they don't make money selling cars, they make money selling replacement parts. To them cars with fewer parts mean less profit over the life of the vehicle, and that's why none of them are making electric vehicles, which are likely to be the most cost effective and clean option for the future.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 23 March 2008 - 10:06 PM.

[Thom]

Well, on an economic level, the problem is that polluters are messing up the market by imposing negative externalities on others. The easy way to deal with this is to balance the externality with something like a carbon tax. Like that would ever happen.

Public transportation can help a lot, as can alternative energy. I know no one wants one in their backyard, and there are legitimate issues as well, but nuclear power is essentially zero-emission and not significantly more expensive than coal. The waste is not nearly so bad as it used to be, though obviously you need somewhere to put it. The fuel is not unlimited, but with luck we'll be burning seawater before we run out of Uranium. I never understood what tree-hugger types had against it.

[imaseoulman]

I first watched this video a little less than a year ago. I find it interesting but not bullet proof. To me, the most significant part is when it shows that CO2 output does not drive temperature change (remember the graph with the huge lag between temperature increase and CO2 output? First temperature goes up and then CO2 increases.

Another interesting little factoid is that just recently (I think I read this from NPR) a report came in that the ocean temperature has not increased in the last ten years! In fact, it has slightly cooled. This is not ocean surface temperature, this is temperature taken at extreme depths (can't remember for sure, but it was 1000-2000) via a large network of robots. The earth is not heating up. The temperature is increasing (it's cyclical...thirty years ago everybody was worried about global cooling) but the earth itself is not heating up. Even if things do get a bit warmer, I don't mind so much. It just means more crops to feed the hungry...shouldn't the liberal left be getting excited about that?

As far as alternative fuels, nuclear power is not going to be powering cars any time soon. It's great for power plants but we also have hydro power which is even cleaner and while it can't provide power for everyboy, it can provide quite a bit. For automobiles, I'm all for hydrogen combustion engines (not hydrogen fuel cells). You get great HorsePower and it is extremely clean (unless of course you hate water).

As far as automakers not making profit on their cars, that's only true for the American companies with lack of planning. FORD has recently made great strides and is now making an average profit of $620 per car. GM is the only company I know of with a defecit (but it's huge at -$2311) but Toyota and Nissan both make a profit of around $1500 per car. It's simply because of their efficiency. It takes American companies 50% more labor hours to make their cars than the Japanese companies.

Eventually the Japanese will either drive GM and other such companies out of business, buy them and do a complete overhaul to increase efficiency, or if we're lucky, these companies will get CEO's/presidents with enough intelligence to forget about quarterly stock reports and plan for the future. But we all know the liberal left want these companies to continue failing so they can take over the economic system, institute the "New New Deal" and oppress Americans under socialism...

[Eboreg]

Whatever the chain of causation it's still a really bad idea to continue at the current level of carbon output and to continue relying on such a tremendously inefficient means of basic transportation. ... How to change things on the other hand is a much more difficult question to answer. We will NEVER stop using fossil fuels because they are in or involved with almost every product you buy. What needs to change are the cars everyone drives, because they're the biggest offenders. But getting all of them changed is going to be an extremely difficult process because of the existing business and infrastructures involved in their creation and facilitation.

Current gasoline engines are EXTREMELY dirty and car markers will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo going. This is because they don't make money selling cars, they make money selling replacement parts. To them cars with fewer parts mean less profit over the life of the vehicle, and that's why none of them are making electric vehicles, which are likely to be the most cost effective and clean option for the future.

a. I've heard of people who modded their hybrid cars to get 100 mpg
b. You say cars are the biggest offenders but I think large transport craft like cruise ships and airplanes offend even more.

[Galaxy613]

You know something hilarious? I saw somewhere that mowers produce a hell alot more pollutants and crap then cars, because cars at least have filters before they send it to the exhust, lawn mowers don't have anything of the sort. Especially not the older, push, lawn mowers.

[Richomundo]

you guys can argue online about the science between greenhouse gas, but I think we can all agree that when someone can commit suicide by leaving their car running in the garage for a few hours, its not a good idea to have 600 million cars emitting the same gasses into our air at a consistently increasing rate.

there were 600 million cars in the world as of 1997

common sense tells us that the emissions are toxic and we shouldn't be breathing the fumes.

irregardless of what science will tell us, the things we are doing as a species to our planet I don't agree with, so I'm going to do as much as possible to reduce the impact I have on the earth. If that means bicycling to work instead of driving or taking the bus, or replacing all the lightbulbs with CFL lights instead of traditional lightbulbs.

The earth's perception of time is much like a plant. A plant does not notice short term changes in it's environment, however if you were to watch the life of a plant sped up it would react to the long term environmental changes around it as quick as they were happening. The same concept exists for the earth, so whatever we are doing to the earth now undoubtedly has an effect on it, when will we see the changes?

In order to continue living on this earth, I must be an earthling and think about what I am doing to the world around me. Is it a good thing or a bad thing, if its a good thing, how can I improve. If it's a bad thing, is doing it necessary for my life? What are the alternatives?

Edited by Richomundo, 24 March 2008 - 09:21 AM.

[CaptainSlug]

As far as alternative fuels, nuclear power is not going to be powering cars any time soon. It's great for power plants but we also have hydro power which is even cleaner and while it can't provide power for everyboy, it can provide quite a bit.

Hydroelectric actually has an emission footprint due to it trapping plant material that would have otherwise escaped downstream. And if not properly maintained they can also have a very negative effect on local ecology. Unfortunately there's not such thing as a perfectly "green" power source.

For automobiles, I'm all for hydrogen combustion engines (not hydrogen fuel cells). You get great HorsePower and it is extremely clean (unless of course you hate water).

Although it does have no emissions from the tailpipe, hydrogen has so many serious logistical problems.

a. I've heard of people who modded their hybrid cars to get 100 mpg
b. You say cars are the biggest offenders but I think large transport craft like cruise ships and airplanes offend even more.

a. And there are people that have modified their hybrid electric cars to be purely electric so they never have to visit the gas station and their operating expense drops to $0.04 per mile (or the equivalent of 250mpg).
b. Cars are the biggest offenders. That's all there is to it.
LA has smog BECAUSE of passenger vehicles. The dirtiest fossil fuel engine possible is a two stroke with no muffler and no carburetor. The cleanest is a turbine engine which produce far less unburnt fuel than any alternative.
Diesel engines are far cleaner than gasoline engines. And larger vehicles have a smaller footprint because they are transporting more people and there are far fewer of them.

You know something hilarious? I saw somewhere that mowers produce a hell alot more pollutants and crap then cars, because cars at least have filters before they send it to the exhust, lawn mowers don't have anything of the sort. Especially not the older, push, lawn mowers.

Yes that's a given. Two stroke engines do a terrible job of combusting the fuel evenly so the emissions contain more unexpended fuel. And since they don't include a carburetor or a muffler all of that escapes into the atmosphere. As an example, more than a third of the carbon footprint of China is produced by two stroke diesel farm vehicles and generators.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 24 March 2008 - 01:08 PM.

[sputnik]

Plus, back before the Little Ice Age during the Little Climatic Optimum. , the average global temperature was higher than it is now.
Did you know that out of a random sample of 100,000 atmospheric particles, 38 are Co2?

Why do the "Eco-Nazis" want to blame Global Warming on humans?

P.S. I really hate to use Wikipedia, as it tends to lean left on their facts, but the majority of the article that Sluggy referenced are true.

Edited by sputnik, 24 March 2008 - 01:53 PM.

[CaptainSlug]

Fun fact: decaying plant material is the largest worldwide contributor to CO2 production.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 24 March 2008 - 01:53 PM.

[imaseoulman]

Fun fact: decaying plant material is the largest worldwide contributor to CO2 production.

Probably the reason why temperature often increases before CO2 output increases (warmer climate = more plants = more decaying plants). There's also the hole warm/cold ocean dissolving different amounts of CO2; as the ocean heats up it releases more CO2. You can test this soda. Poor two glasses of soda and let one sit at room temp and let one sit in the fridge for a while. Come back later and take a drink of both and the cold soda in the fridge will have retained more "fizz."

Oh yeah, and here's another little fun graph for you:

Hmmm...I wonder if it's cyclical?

Edited by imaseoulman, 24 March 2008 - 02:06 PM.

[sputnik]

Oh yeah, and here's another little fun graph for you:

Hmmm...I wonder if it's cyclical?

Nah, it's probably umm..data error. Yeah, that's it!
Because the only explanation for that graph is that humans are evil, and that we should all ride bikes and live in caves, and only eat wild vegetables. Cause y'know, that makes sense...Right?

[bogboogalars]

Almost everything on this runs on a "clock" or cycle so yes it will go up but eventually go back down.

[CaptainSlug]

There's also the theory of solar flare activity being linked to cloud seeding. Our climate cycles could very likely be linked directly to the activity cycle of the sun.
It's all up in the air. The only thing that's definite is that there are way too many gasoline powered cars and they're making the air quality in cities terrible. There are ways to fix this now, or slowly over the next 40 years. The disagreements over how or why to do so are beside the point.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 24 March 2008 - 04:30 PM.

[Thom]

Why do the "Eco-Nazis" want to blame Global Warming on humans?

Godwin's Law on the first page? Wow, I was sure overoptimistic. Thread over.

[Omega]

I've seen this. Yes, much like Zeitgeist only less BS-filled.

I'm calling it cyclical, but I still think we need to reduce emissions. (NUCLEAR POWER KOFFKOFF)

[Recruit]

(NUCLEAR POWER KOFFKOFF)

I agree but its not going to happen in the next 20 or more years. The reason for it is it would kill the coal industry.

[Galaxy613]

People are still scared of nuclear power, there hasn't been any recent nuclear power planets built if I recall correctly. People are still scared that they'll blow up like the long isle incident. Oh wait, it didn't blow up, it just released toxic steam. Oh wait, that "toxic" steam was barely toxic/harmful...

[shadowkid33]

People are still scared of nuclear power, there hasn't been any recent nuclear power planets built if I recall correctly. People are still scared that they'll blow up like the long isle incident. Oh wait, it didn't blow up, it just released toxic steam. Oh wait, that "toxic" steam was barely toxic/harmful...

Oh wait...Chernobyl. NO WAY!

Only kidding, no offense to anybody here, it just seemed...appropriate.

[Eboreg]

It seems that a lot of people here are advocates of nukular power so I think that this might provide interesting reading. And for those against fusion power, Spider-Man 2 does not count as a reliable source.

[ultra920]

It seems that a lot of people here are advocates of nukular power so I think that this might provide interesting reading. And for those against fusion power, Spider-Man 2 does not count as a reliable source.

Wierd, after watching spiderman 2, i love the idea of fusion.

But yeah, Global Warming is a cycle. That dosen't mean polute away.