I never said that. You claimed that it was not possible to have stricter standards on CO2 without hurting the poor or going nuclear. There's ample evidence to the contrary. Considering we're both Americans, and our country is doing more harm to the environment than any other at the moment, shouldn't we first concentrate on what we can do? There's no rule that everyone should be held to the exact same standard. Now, can you explain why European countries can put strict standards in place and maintain a high standard of living, while we can not?
Reducing your consumption of meat would make a big impact, as it takes a lot of grains to make a little meat.
You mean European countries like France, which use over 70% of it's power comes from nuclear power. Europe has more nuclear power plants the U.S. and depends on more of it's energy from nuclear power. That means less CO2 and it can have tighter regulations. Also, Europe is greener for the same reason that NYC is the greenest city in the U.S. When you have a high population density, mass transit becomes more feasible. In the u.s., a flight or a car trip is longer distance than it would be in europe, where rail and bus is a more viable option. To expect India and China to implement very strict environmental regulations and caps - and to think that will drive up the standard of living is just wishful thinking.
You might consider reading more. R2K obviously has. As the Arctic Ice Cap disappears, the reflectivity of the ice disappears. The water temperature will rise... it is rising now, and as the temperature of water rises, the water expands. My children knew this in grade school. (their grade school was far better than the baby boomer expand-a-school I went to through the 6th grade, before I went to an equally lousy Junior High... what they call Middle School these days) When you have the water temperature rise on a grand scale, you are going to see a real impact on sea level. A rise in sea level of 2 or 3 feet, and around a meter is quite possible, will have a major impact in a host of areas around the world, as well as other impacts more indirectly, at first glance, than just sea level rise. The rise in sea level will not just be from the rise in water temperature, but water temperature is a significant component. You may not be too concerned, but you should be. D&D. Impeach Bush for Promoting Torture.
nuclear is not idea bc 1) the waste 2) the possibility of an accident. you say gores theory is false but you have no rock solid, 100% full proof evidence that he is wrong. at the same time i acknowledge that Gore doesnt have rock solid evidence that humans are the cause of global warming. even though it may cost jobs, i think we should cut carbon emission bc if gore is right, lives are at stake. that why more resources should be invested in developing a clean renewable source of energy. it would creat new jobs, remove our dependence on foreign oil, give us a strategic economic and military advantage over other nations, and give us cleaner air.
How much will the ocean temperature increase due to a loss in reflectivity from polar ice? maybe you can ask your kids.
When we make stupid investments like corn based ethanol, I can understand the frustration people have with trying to reduce carbon emissions. How much could we advance solar technology if we invested all the money we spend on farm subsidies in solar energy instead. There are very clean energy production techniques right now. If we invest in them, they can be improved to increase efficiency. Solar, hydroelectric, wind, maybe even sink some money into researching tide and geothermal based power generation to make it practical. There is a lot of coastline out there that has water moving back and forth all day long. How is paying people to grow corn a better investment than that? Why aren't there solar panels on every building in America? No one is serious about improving the environment, it is all just a big show to funnel big bucks to people that pay the spokesmen.
Well, France wasn't the country I had in mind, but you're right. In general, European countries rely more on nuclear energy. They have been trending towards phasing it out in the past few decades, though, and are more active in exploring and using alternative energy sources. You think, ultimately, they will have to stick with nuclear energy? So cities with high population densities should be environment-friendly in the US. You mention NY, but why isn't that the case in general over here? I mean, doesn't most of the pollution in the US come from big cities with high density populations? Something doesn't add up.
All I can say is this.... I am not a scientist. I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Even so, it has always seemed odd to me that we have been keeping records on temerature, etc for 150 years or so out of the millions of years the planet has existed, and we take that incredibly small sample size and presume that we know the cause of global warming. The fact that there were ice ages, etc shows to me that there IS some kind of climate cycle. How much of our current trends are the result of the natural cycle and how much are human causes? Hell if I know. I think that we should act responsibly and if we can reduce emissions, we should. But I find it fishy to think that with relatively such little data, we can presume to fully understand our atmosphere.
C'mon Ref... you ought to know better. Granted, the written documentation we have of temps is not very long. However, scientists can extrapolate temps from a huge number of sources... bog cores, ice cores, tree rings, coral, snow, etc. You can also use historical records to infer lots of stuff. (One of the things you do in the SW if you find a new arch site is immediately look for any timbers that are part of the structure... using tree ring analysis, they can figure out when the tree was cut and get a good chunk of data for that place during the time period.) Here's a course description from the U of Arizona Tree Ring Laboratory... the cutting edge of this kind of work...
Maybe you should read more. It doesn't take a large rise in ocean temperature to affect a host of things that will have a negative impact on this planet we live on. Sea level rise due to thermal expansion would be but a part of what will produce a rise in sea level. The increase in water temperature (and what is causing the rise in water temperature... global warming, that thing that is causing the Arctic Ice Cap to disappear), however, leads to a lot of consequences we won't enjoy. Here are a couple. The permafrost in Alaska, Canada, and Siberia is melting. The increase in temperature is having a major impact on glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic Ice Sheets. There is evidence that sea ice was impeding the flow of glaciers and ice sheets. Removed, the flow is increasing. The rise in water temperature increases the temperature of the air. Logical, isn't it? As the air temperature increases, water seeps into cracks in the ice sheets and migrates to the bottom. This forms a "slush" that lubricates the ice sheets and glaciers, causing them to flow faster and to make them more unstable. There are many, many consequences. First, addressing an increase in water temperature on ocean levels, from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology... Warming of the upper ocean as a direct consequence of an increase in global temperatures The additional warming from the anthropogenic greenhouse effect causes the water column to expand, raising the sea level. A warming of the entire world ocean by 1 ºC would, for example, produce a sea level rise of 0.5m. Such a uniform warming of the entire ocean within a short time is however unrealistic. Because the deep ocean warms up much more slowly than the upper layers, water exchange between these two regions is reduced as the warming happens, which slows the whole process of sea level rise. The figure of a 0.5m rise should therefore just be taken as an indication of the order of magnitude of the change possible through thermal expansion. The next 100 years Predictions for the next hundred years are closely linked with estimates of the temperature rise expected. Various model experiments suggest further sea level rise of between 20 and 86 cm by 2100, along with a temperature rise of 2.5 ºC. The largest contribution to this figure comes from the thermal expansion of the ocean (around 27 cm), with glacier melt water in second place (around 12 cm). The role of the large polar ice sheets varies – whilst Greenland is expected to melt slightly and raise the sea level by about 4 cm, the Antarctic ice sheet is predicted to increase in volume and decrease sea level by around 8 cm. http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/presse/faq-s/wie-stark-steigt-der-meeresspiegel.html An obvious one, from NASA... BRIGHT WHITE REFLECTS LIGHT- THE GLOBAL ROLE OF THE POLAR CAPS The polar caps not only hold much of the planet's total fresh water, but also play an important role in regulating the Earth's temperature. The relevant characteristic is called albedo. It's a measure of how much radiation, or light, is reflected from a body. Similar to how a white shirt helps keep a person cooler in the summer than a black shirt, the vast stretches of polar ice covering much of the planet's top and bottom reflect large amounts of solar radiation falling on the planet's surface. Were the ice caps to appreciably recede, sunlight that otherwise would have been reflected back into space would get absorbed by the darker, denser mass of ocean and land beneath. As light is absorbed, the environment is heated, thus intensifying a feedback loop: a warmer planet yields more ice melting thus an even warmer planet. IS THE OCEAN RISING? This animation provides a closer perspective of the relationship between ice and solar reflectivity. As glaciers, the polar caps, and in this case, icebergs melt, less sunlight gets reflected into space. It is instead absorbed into the oceans and land, thus raising the overall temperature, and adding energy to a vicious circle. Of the many concerns voiced by scientists who study global warming trends, rising ocean levels is one of the most dramatic. An average rise in global ocean levels of just a few inches could have devastating effects on coastal towns, cities, and ecosystems. Why then is even the slightest risk of a shrinking polar cap not sounding alarms all across the world's lowland regions? It comes down to a simple principle proved thousands of years ago by the Greek philosopher and scientist Archimedes. He showed that a body, in this case the floating ice of the North Pole, immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. In other words, since the northern pack ice is already floating its melting would not independently cause ocean levels to rise. However, the attending planetary conditions necessary to facilitate polar melting would likely have other enormous effects on the environment. These include the likely melting of the ice sheets covering Greenland and the vast reaches blanketing southern polar cap. As the ice over Greenland and Antarctica is NOT floating, a corresponding rise in the world's sea level would almost certainly result if it melted. This is a conceptual animation showing how melting ice on land and at sea, can affect the surrounding ocean water, changing both the chemistry and relative sea level. Credit: NASA http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html You go ahead and worry about the short term impact on business. The rest of us can worry about the long term impact of simply putting our heads in the sand. That doesn't look like a good idea. You might want to buy ear plugs to keep the sand out. D&D. Impeach Bush for Promoting Torture and Gross Incompetence.
either way, if someone loses a job, they can go out and find a new job. if we lose our planet, we're sh*t out of luck. (better buy some real estate on the moon and mars. )
Because most U.S. cities suffer from urban sprawal which makes mass transit useless. Look at Houston and Atlanta - it's more like one big suburb.
Deckard, you still haven't come even close to answering the question. All this spewing and for what? You still haven't told us how much the ocean temperature will rise as a result of less reflection from ice in the polar regions. Could it be that it's so minisicule that it's not really going to affect ocean temperature enough to even impact thermal expansion of the seas? Please, make sure you know that the impact of something will actually register before making the statement.
its great that youre showing such concern for those that will be unemployed in india and china. but im sure their governments will create new jobs for them.
Ice cores contained trapped air bubbles. Via which we can deduce CO2 levels. Yes. As plants increase, CO2 decreases, leading to an ice age. Plants die, CO2 increases, and the planet warms. Repeat (very simplified). Humans are already thought to have delayed an ice age due to fossil fuel consumption. Regardless, the point is that the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is higher than it has ever been before. And it's still climbing. link We don't presume to fully understand. But we can presume to use a bit of inference and common sense - backed by a wealth of data.
You know, if I were skeptical of the consensus view of the scientific community, I would spend a lot of time making sure of my position before I would try to make a case. "After all," I would think, "isn't it more likely that the scientists are right, and I'm wrong?" That's because, like basically everyone here, I'm a layman. Also, I don't like looking like an idiot. Why have scientists if every moron with a keyboard is going to feel equally qualified to make scientific conclusions?
rhad, for ice-age cycles, I *think* it's also true that the earth's tilt (an angle away from the solar system axis) changes on 10,000 year cycles or so, depending on these occasional tugs from Jupiter. I may have that wrong, but I'm pretty sure the tilt changes, making winter cycles much colder and more severe, etc. Pretty freaky thought. and bucket, that's a nice post. But we question lawyers and doctors and all that. I think part of the issue here is that there's a perception that scientists have really put their foot into politics. There's such a perception that it's a democrat/left-leaning cause, that it hurts peoples' perception of science as an objective process. Just my 2 dents.
