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#20350 - 11/18/14 12:08 AM Global Warming
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
Nothing like a little controversy to stir things up.

Within our ranks, I fear there are great number of people who discount global warming. I respectfully submit that, because their earth is flat, the sun bounces off it better, and they aren't gonna suffer this problem.

Look here, Leonard, the planet is warmin' up. There is less sea ice every year. The "Northwest Passage" may become a distinct shipping reality. Sea levels are going to rise. (For those who are less informed, water runs downhill.)

There is a lot of speculation as to what caused this from "Caused what?" to "Repent Now, the end is near."

From the perspective of a middle ground, here is what I see. It's like two groups of people standing on a railroad track, before an oncoming freight train. Group A, stands on the track and pretends the train isn't coming, and Group B stands on the track, thinking they're gonna stop it.

My advice to both -- get off the tracks!!

Of utmost concern should be how we will deal with this.

And I'm not here to promote any one cause of global warming. If you look at history, the gol darn planet has gone through fluctuations of this type before. Long before man wallowed around on this planet. We don't need to feel special in that respect.

Could this be human induced? Sure, it could be. We have released a whole lot of carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon that Mama Nature spent years sequestering below the surface. But if we hadn't done that, we would never have progressed to the point we are at now. Coal fueled the industrial revolution, both here and abroad. And that fueled the technological revolution.

Again, it is not as important to fix blame as it is to prepare for the future.

I'm not even going to say that global warming is a "bad" thing. It's just going to be different, and doesn't mean squat to old Mother Earth.

I'm fairly well convinced that the human race can adapt, but we ought to get to adaptin'. Even if CO2 is the problem, it took us a couple hundred years to get into trouble, why should anyone think it won't take a couple hundred years to come back out.

Like that oncoming freight train, we had better worry about getting off the track right now, and focus on stopping it, if that's even possible, later.

Hal
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#20369 - 11/18/14 01:41 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Ric Offline


Registered: 07/22/00
Posts: 3695
Loc: Wellington,OH=USA
I'm a firm believer in climate change. No so much that we are having that much to do with it.

I doubt very much that limiting CO2 release is high on the list of worries for those people still living in conditions similar to U.S. circa 18-1900.

I also find it disturbing/amusing the our leadership is so concerned about something that may be an issue in 50-100 years but can't pass a budget for next year.WE have more pressing issues.When they devise a way to tax Hydro-thermal vents and volcano's along with fining the sun for maliciously varying it's out put they will truly have arrived.

Can human beings adapt? We have for the past million years or so.I have my doubts about the majority of the new crop especially in developed nations.

Darwinism may come into play. Pretty simple rules.Adapt or Die

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#20382 - 11/19/14 12:34 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Ric Offline


Registered: 07/22/00
Posts: 3695
Loc: Wellington,OH=USA
After watching this evenings news. I think we should ask the folks in the Tug Hill region of New York for their opinion on global warming

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#20384 - 11/19/14 02:10 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
ron finewood Offline
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Registered: 03/31/10
Posts: 514
Loc: palmyra, new york
I live about an hour from the Tug Hill region. Yes! When it snows ---- it snows. All of the storm clouds from Lake Ontario dump their goodies right there. Around here, global warming is just a bunch of political B/S.

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#20387 - 11/19/14 04:27 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Mike Conrad Offline
Member

Registered: 07/17/05
Posts: 272
Loc: Sheffield, Ohio
I recently read where the Antarctic now has the highest ice covering by area and depth since satellites have been able to take the measurements. The article stated that the big reason for this was a change in the wind patters that have prevented ice from drifting out to sea. And that the change in the wind patters are attributed to............"climate change". I think there are a lot of people who have a vested/financial interest in the climate change issue who spew a lot of bs to keep the $ flowing. Al Gore being the biggest among them. Even though the ice caps haven't melted by now, as he predicted, he sure has made a lot of money off of this.

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#20389 - 11/19/14 07:05 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
All Al Gore did was politicize a debate that ought to be scientific. I don't see any reasonable doubt about the greenhouse effect. More carbon in the atmosphere means the earth will warm up, and at some unknown tipping point the process may be irreversible. Witness our sister planet, Venus, where most of the world's carbon is in the atmosphere, the clouds are acidic, and surface temperatures are nine-hundred degrees.

Besides which, you can hardly live in the subarctic without recognizing that THIS part of the world is warming up. Winters have consistently been getting milder (right now it's slightly ABOVE freezing here). Towns have been flooded due to early ice breakups, and a whole village was recently washed out to sea.

It seems obvious to me that humanity has been the cause of climate change. Yes, there are natural climate cycles, but not on the order of what is seen since the Industrial Age. Advanced aliens studying our solar system would be able to detect our civilization just by the abrupt increase in carbon in the atmosphere.

Leaving Al Gore out of it (far out of it, where he belongs), the legitimate questions are what can we do to halt the trend, and how much will it cost? Probably, instead of paying the price all at once, we'll want to make installment payments with incremental changes in our energy use.

Jim

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#20392 - 11/19/14 03:58 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Ric Offline


Registered: 07/22/00
Posts: 3695
Loc: Wellington,OH=USA
I don't believe using Venus as an example to be valid. There are other factors that vastly out weigh any thing we could possibly experience on Earth that have determined Venus's environment.

"Yes, there are natural climate cycles, but not on the order of what is seen since the Industrial Age."

Please do some research into the some of the events occurring durring different glaciation periods. Some were much more rapid that people envision

"It seems obvious to me that humanity has been the cause of climate change"

My,Humans are short sighted and self important.

Assuming "industrialization" began to occur about the late 18th century.
That's about 250 years give or take. Not even a blip in geologic time. Humans could move through the hydrocarbon fuel source period onto cleaner fuels with no significant change in a long period graphic representation.

Human beings, Industry and domestic animals(the "Human" component) produce produce about 34 BMT of CO2, Insects produce about 48 BMT (Billion metric ton). Maybe we could start with killing off the tundra mosquito's that should slow things down a bit

Also consider that we are still in the tail end a the Wisconsin glacial period. All recorded information has been collected during the end of an "ice age" not an interglacial period.

At this point in our evolution ONLY affluent economies can even think about limiting energy availability or increasing its cost.
That leaves most of the word and most of the people in the affluent countries dependent on hydrocarbon fuels for now. And they are not going to sacrifice themselves.

The vast majority of those promoting changes,sacrifices will not be effected by any actions taken. Matter of fact they are looking to profit from them.A LOT OF PROFIT.

What can we do to attempt to halt this trend. Advance, there are already signs of this occurring.Natural gas is probably the next step.Much cleaner, a step in the right direction. Hydrogen,cold fusion maybe even space based solar.

We will just have to wait and see











Edited by Ric (11/19/14 04:38 PM)

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#20395 - 11/19/14 10:35 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
Let's be civil. It's just about impossible to keep this in focus. I believe the Venus analogy is little farfetched. By the same token Planet Earth doesn't care if it provides habitat for humans, or not. Remember, the planet is not in danger, we are.

On the other hand, to deny the role humans have, and will continue to play in shaping this planet is naive. Those of us who are graying, certainly remember the rampant water pollution in this country in the 50's and 60's. The Cuyahoga River caught fire for god's sake. What caused that? Fish poop? smile

I side with the pessimists but not in denying climate change. I do think rising carbon levels are real, and I do think a warming of the atmosphere is upcoming. Carbon induced, possibly. A "natural" rebound, possibly. What's the difference? It's coming, it's real. If it is carbon induced, then as Ric noted, developing countries are not going strive for eco-friendly power, when they can barely feed themselves.

But, I don't think it's wrong to search for alternative energy sources. I think we will need them. I think coal and oil are becoming more expensive to produce all the time because the easy stuff is gone. There is some irony to think that whale-oil lamps were obsolesced by kerosene which was way cheaper. Which segues into the aspect of folks making a profit off this. Rockefeller made a boatload of money refining oil, and made it affordable for folks to light their homes at night. It is my position that advances are most expediently serviced by greed as opposed to ultruism.

So maybe some energy source will become cheaper, and less polluting, than hydrocarbons. My faith lies in science. It is possible that some of our descendants will stumble on cold fusion, as our ancestors stumbled upon fire.

In the meantime...

If you are firmly convinced that this is a hoax, well, you folks are gonna be okay, as long as you stay away from the edge.

The discussion here I hoped would surround what measures we might take to mitigate the impact that a warmer climate might have on our current human population. What do you think will happen and how will we address that?

Hal
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#20399 - 11/19/14 11:29 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Mike Conrad Offline
Member

Registered: 07/17/05
Posts: 272
Loc: Sheffield, Ohio
FYI Venus 96% co2 - Earth 0.04% or 400 parts per million.

Carbon levels have risen from 280ppm to 400 ppm since the start of the industrial revolution. Quite a few temperature swings during this time would indicate no direct correlation between co2 and temps.

Hal, you state rising temps. The data I have seen would indicate that happened up to about 1998. Since then temps have been steady to lower. Is there other, or more current, info related to this.

Back on topic - I agree that science will have to provide any solution. I also think this will be very difficult under current circumstances. The "pro" warming forces did themselves no favor by stating ridiculous scenarios such as no polar ice by 2015 or sea level rising 2.5 feet in the next 20-30 years. Just feeds the conspiracy angle.

That said, it appears that co2 storage underground may hold some promise. Annual levels of co2 decline during growing seasons as plants consume more co2 at that time of year. Maybe there could be some way to "force feed" plants to increase consumption.

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#20401 - 11/20/14 12:04 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
Here's a chart from NOAA

_________________________
Endeavor to persevere.

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#20402 - 11/20/14 12:34 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Ric Offline


Registered: 07/22/00
Posts: 3695
Loc: Wellington,OH=USA
Maybe I was misunderstood.

I am all for profit for those that produce. I have a problem with those that wish to profit from fear mongering and selling snake oil.

Alternate sources are the future.I do not think that we can remain wedded to hydrocarbon fuel sources.

What can we do. Individually, not a damn thing but live in a way that lets you sleep well.

Nationally,by cutting our energy consumption. Not much more. This is a Global issue. Everyone needs to be on board.China itself has been bringing a new coal fired power plant on line ever thirty (30) days for the past few years. They don't build small or clean.

Nationally,by other means. Use what we have and improve on it. Fission is a viable source that is under utilized. Coal is cleaner that it ever has been and probably can be improved on. Natural gas is very promising.We can't cripple ourselves while working on the next power source

Above all we need a goal,plan and R&D funding.It took us app. 8 years from the first U.S. manned space flight till we landed a man on the Moon. Using computers that would be dwarfed by what is in your phone (flip phones not included Hal).6 years to develop workable nuclear weapons from a theory (Manhattan Project would have been 24 B in 2014 dollars or .14% of the 2014 GDP). We can't come up with a reliable, relatively clean cost effective energy source? I don't think obtaining it is as much a problem as finding the leadership that will enable and focus the resources necessary to do the job

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#20403 - 11/20/14 12:44 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
People are just too freightened of fission.

Hal
_________________________
Endeavor to persevere.

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#20405 - 11/20/14 02:03 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Mike Conrad Offline
Member

Registered: 07/17/05
Posts: 272
Loc: Sheffield, Ohio
Hal, your chart shows what I was saying, basically, no temp change up or down last 15 years or so.

Recently, I asked a neighbor who is a retired professor of geology from OSU about his take on global warming. He stated it was warmer during the middle ages. He then went on to list a number of projects that were completed during that time. His theory was that with warmer weather there was more success in raising food which provided more time for progress. Who knows, we may be better off with warmer temps. Longer growing seasons with increased production.

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#20406 - 11/20/14 03:49 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
Here are a couple more graphs. Show what Mike was talking about.



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#20407 - 11/20/14 03:51 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
There will be winners and losers in climate change. Heck, I may invest in beachfront property up here in Alaska.

If you live along rivers or in coastal areas, or in those regions that become desert, you may be hurting. In fact, you WILL be hurting.

I'm skeptical that we'll ever discover cold fusion. So far as we know, it doesn't exist in nature; all the examples of fusion we see in nature (the stars), like our own thermonuclear weapons, are examples of hot fusion.

It seems to me that it would be easier to develop an antimatter reactor. (I'm sure I'm being far-fetched again, but bear with me.) We can at least create antimatter-matter reactions in particle-accelerators. So it's something we know is possible. And it would produce far more energy for the mass involved that a fusion reactor.

We probably should be relying more on fission reactors in the meantime, but Hal is right, people are too frightened of them.

Jim


Edited by Talachulitna Jim (11/20/14 03:53 AM)

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#20409 - 11/20/14 03:56 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
Perhaps "controlled" fusion would be more attainable. Of course, we have controlled fission now. -- Hal
_________________________
Endeavor to persevere.

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#20411 - 11/20/14 04:03 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
It's hard to see on your graph, but I bet that slope in the last 150 years is pretty steep.

Jim

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#20412 - 11/20/14 04:10 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
What about orbiting power stations (orbiting either the earth or the sun) that collect solar energy and send it by laser beam to stations/power plants on earth? We put the solar collectors in orbit so they won't shade part of earth, thus robbing us of the energy produced.

Not my original idea, and not that far-fetched either. We have the technology; it simply isn't economically feasible in our fossil-fuel economy.

Now, if we dramatically increase the tax on gasoline. . . . <ducking>

Jim



Edited by Talachulitna Jim (11/20/14 04:11 AM)

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#20415 - 11/20/14 10:47 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
I believe there are more practical earth-bound solutions -- taxation not being one of them. (The free market economy will shake this out when fossil fuels simply become too expensive.) -- Hal
_________________________
Endeavor to persevere.

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#20424 - 11/20/14 06:46 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Mike Conrad Offline
Member

Registered: 07/17/05
Posts: 272
Loc: Sheffield, Ohio
I don't remember the exact numbers, but co2 is estimated to be responsible for about 20-25% of all "global warming" causes. Water vapor is responsible for around 60%. After 9-11, during the ban on flying, a study at the time showed day time highs were just slightly lower due to less water vapor from contrails. But, nighttime lows were approximately 5 degrees lower due to daytime heating being able to escape. Maybe science can come up with a way for jets to be more efficient and produce less vapor.

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#20426 - 11/20/14 07:43 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
Ric sent me a treatise on volcanos contributing CO2. Likely they do. (In an entirely different vein, if the top blows off ol' Krakatoa we will have an entirely different devastation. What would one-year's crop loss cost homo sapiens?)

Back to the point, and trying to maintain a middle ground. As long as we agree there are elevated levels of carbon in the atmosphere and agree that the temperature has gone up in the last 100 years by almost 1° Celcius (Those are measurable quantities.)we're on the same page. Has warming plateaued? There, according to the charts it has. Will it go down? Will it go up? No way to tell.

Even if it does level out, I think it will be warmer enough, that it will change our way of doing business. It is interesting to look at those charts. Look back there in the ice age. The temperature was a paltry 4° below normal.

Will sea levels rise? I don't see how that is avoidable. That 2-3 feet stuff is alarmist, but just a few inches will make a difference in low lying costal areas. We ought to bar folks from developing those areas. Ideally, we would let folks develop those area "at their own risk". But it never works like that. We are socialized to rescue them. Best to apply that social inertia by barring development in the first place. I can actually envision a scenario by which it will most effective to apply eminent domain to habitually flooded areas, and buy out landowners. I know that sounds awful "commie", but I don't want to keep bailing out folks who ain't smart enough to stay out of the floodplain.

Hal
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Endeavor to persevere.

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#20433 - 11/20/14 10:01 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Mike Conrad Offline
Member

Registered: 07/17/05
Posts: 272
Loc: Sheffield, Ohio
They already do that, buy out habitually flooding areas. As far as I know, they are just doing it along the major river valleys as of now. FEMA buys up your property and it can only be used for farmland, parks, etc. The land owner is required to build elsewhere. In some cases, they have bought up whole towns which have been relocated to higher ground.

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#20443 - 11/21/14 01:28 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
Volcanos also emit a lot of particulates (soot), which tends to have a cooling effect like the so-called nuclear winter. The Little Ice Age shown on Hal's graph was likely caused by the eruption of a massive volcano.

Jim

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#20450 - 11/21/14 06:02 PM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Hal Online   content
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Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 10227
Loc: Blue Creek, Ohio, USA
I dug into that Little Ice Age. It seems like there a was series of smaller volcanic eruptions, that could have been contributory. But some of the theories get a little farfetched. There is one that claims that the Black Death killed off enough people that farmland reverted to forest contributing to the cooling. Further, European intrusion into North America devastated indigenous populations, again taking "farm land" out of production. I liken this to the theories that humans hunted Mastodons to extinction.

I understand that habitually flooded land in river valleys is being bought up but I am not convinced that river valley flooding is primarily attributable to climate change (with the possible exception of storm severity) Here is a case in which I have no problem whatsoever citing human degradation. We drained all swamps and wetlands, mostly for agriculture. Storm runoff is immediate. The rivers fill up (and overfill) in a hurry.

If warming really does raise sea levels, we may have to buy up costal land.
_________________________
Endeavor to persevere.

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#20461 - 11/22/14 12:37 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
River flooding up here is linked to global warming, at least in many opinions. As the people in Buffalo may soon find out, a quick warming added to a bunch of snow and ice is an invitation to flooding. If it rains during the warm-up, as frequently happens here, flooding is even worse.

In May 2013, an abrupt breakup of the Yukon River left the town of Circle flooded and buried under blocks of ice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8MER7rSZw

Jim

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#20462 - 11/22/14 02:10 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Ric Offline


Registered: 07/22/00
Posts: 3695
Loc: Wellington,OH=USA


Hasn't Yukon river flooding during spring break up been a concern long before Global Warming became an issue?

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the main cause of Yukon river flooding from ice dams being formed?

and

If global warming is the root cause. Where is all this ice coming from

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#20463 - 11/22/14 02:39 AM Re: Global Warming [Re: Hal]
Talachulitna Jim Offline
Member

Registered: 12/09/00
Posts: 317
Loc: Anchorage, AK
The ice is from the river. When the river ice breaks up, it floats downriver in chunks sometimes as big as houses. Sometimes these chunks dam up the river and cause a flood.

In 2013 Circle was almost wiped out in a flood like nothing seen in the town's 120-year history.

This one incident doesn't prove global warming theory, but it is an example of the kind of disasters we'll have to prepare for in the north, if even part of the global warming predictions are true.

Jim


Edited by Talachulitna Jim (11/22/14 02:40 AM)

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