Global Warming II

[Beef11]

Worlds greatest minds, concensus

The world is flat

1491

In 516 years from now people will say "Global What?".

 

[aplusmnt]

Not sure if Cars cause Global warming or not, but I am game for it.

It is 18 degrees out tonight with a wind chill in the negatives I am sure. Was mopping a store and set my mop outside the door for a few minutes and it was frozen solid.

So I came home and started all the cars and am leaving them running all night.

Going to try to speed this Global Warming thing up a bit, cause I am freezing my butt off!

On a serious note, if Global Warming is real, then no better reason to promote preserving the farm land. Nothing helps like plants. I actually wonder if anyone has did any research into the fact that maybe it is not the cars, but maybe the diminishing Agriculture land? Maybe all the cement the is over taking the earth has hurt more than the cars.

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

On a serious note, if Global Warming is real, then no better reason to promote preserving the farm land. Nothing helps like plants. I actually wonder if anyone has did any research into the fact that maybe it is not the cars, but maybe the diminishing Agriculture land? Maybe all the cement the is over taking the earth has hurt more than the cars.

That is actually a good theory, but its cities that are causing the problem. I remember from university that the professor talked about these things called 'adiabats'. Basically, when the weather is calm, the area around a city sort of forms its own microclimate bubble that is affected in the winter by all the heaters and cars and other forces in that area that change the climate in that city. Then the wind gets up and blows all that hot air away and the process starts again on the next calm day. But you can see that if you have enough area covered by cities, that all that extra electricity spent on heating will warm the earth over the long term. Interesting. Although this would still support the argument that global warming is a man made problem.

 

[chrisy]

I was watching a programme on the Volcano Krakatoa, which blew its top in 1883, and it said the amount of Magma and dust clouded the whole sky and it lingered well into the 20th Century, and cooled the earth by at least 10 deg's, perhaps now that that cloud has settled, that is why we are getting a little warmer also. not saying the other things don't contribute.

They have perfected an electric car here, but our Government has put the kibosh on it, and we all know why..... it will take away the revenue on taxes from Petrol and Oil. that is just IMO.

 

[Campground Cattle]

I was watching a programme on the Volcano Krakatoa, which blew its top in 1883, and it said the amount of Magma and dust clouded the whole sky and it lingered well into the 20th Century, and cooled the earth by at least 10 deg's, perhaps now that that cloud has settled, that is why we are getting a little warmer also. not saying the other things don't contribute.

They have perfected an electric car here, but our Government has put the kibosh on it, and we all know why..... it will take away the revenue on taxes from Petrol and Oil. that is just IMO.

You are kidding right what do you think fuels the power plant?
Fossil fuel to make electricity, if the power plant plant is not fueled by nuclear what a joke.
Talk about an energy loser thats it, power generation is one of the most polluting industries we have.

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

You are kidding right what do you think fuels the power plant?
Fossil fuel to make electricity, if the power plant plant is not fueled by nuclear what a joke.
Talk about an energy loser thats it, power generation is one of the most polluting industries we have.

Well, there is Hydro Electric power as well. That's a big selling point up here in Manitoba is that Hydro Electric Power is so clean, but we still have coal burning power plants when the demand gets a little higher. I agree. I don't think electric cars are the answer either. I like the idea of these hydrogen fuel cells though. Apparently, all they produce is water and teh hydrogen for them could come from ethanol or even water if they wanted to do the work to separate out the Hydrogen.

 

[badaxemoo]

On a serious note, if Global Warming is real, then no better reason to promote preserving the farm land. Nothing helps like plants. I actually wonder if anyone has did any research into the fact that maybe it is not the cars, but maybe the diminishing Agriculture land? Maybe all the cement the is over taking the earth has hurt more than the cars.

You're right that preserving farmland is important when talking about climate change. Not just because of the urban heat island problem, but because growing plants sequester carbon.

My understanding is that during summer in the northern hemisphere, atmospheric carbon drops because of plant growth. It is less dramatic in the southern hemisphere because there is less land mass there.

This could have importance for people like us who graze cattle. Pasture sequesters carbon, but tillage for annual crops like corn and beans releases significant amount of carbon into the atmosphere.

If an organized carbon exchange is ever established it might be possible for graziers to sell credits to industries that release carbon.

 

[Horse Guy]

You are kidding right what do you think fuels the power plant?
Fossil fuel to make electricity, if the power plant plant is not fueled by nuclear what a joke.
Talk about an energy loser thats it, power generation is one of the most polluting industries we have.

Well, there is Hydro Electric power as well. That's a big selling point up here in Manitoba is that Hydro Electric Power is so clean, but we still have coal burning power plants when the demand gets a little higher. I agree. I don't think electric cars are the answer either. I like the idea of these hydrogen fuel cells though. Apparently, all they produce is water and teh hydrogen for them could come from ethanol or even water if they wanted to do the work to separate out the Hydrogen.

Hydrogen cars wont work well in your climate. You know Canada only produces less than 2% of the worlds carbons anyway. Why are Canadians worried about it? There is nothing that anybody in North America can really do about global warming or climate change anyways.
This is just an excuse to tax us.
I heard that Suzuki guy on TV asking people to think about what can be done to lower emissions. My answer <jokeing>would have been to nuke China and India since they are the ones who are producing most of the carbon.
On a local level stop all immagration. More people= more pollution. Haha That would have annoyed him!

 

[badaxemoo]

The things we can do is plant trees, and quit doing stupid things. For instance, we learned that our coolant systems contributed and we did something about it.

Many common household products and packaging contribute. Don't buy those things or things in that packaging. The manufacturers will get the message and change.

Why does our government not tell us the best practices and leave it at that? For instance tell us the best trees to plant such that those doing it will know.

I wouldn't argue with planting trees and producing less waste. They are both fine things to do. We changed coolants because of a problem with ozone depletion and it's my understanding this is an important but separate issue from global warming.

There are other things that concerned citizens can do. You can replace incandescent bulbs with fluorescent. You can buy fuel efficient vehicles. You can eat lower on the food chain. You can make sure your retirement investments are in "greener" companies.

Those are all valid actions, but I think it will take much more than that to slow global warming down (current research seems to show that we can't stop it).

Individuals can't really choose where their electricity is generated. For rural people, electric cars and mass transportation aren't reasonable options. As individuals we can't do much at all about the explosive growth in fossil fuel consumption in India and China.

What individuals can do is to push the U.S. government to listen to its own scientists and take action. Until recently, the voice of industry has been much louder on the issue that the voice of citizens. We have the potential to be a leader on the issue, but right now we are a primary contributor to the problem (5% of the world's population producing 25% of the greenhouse gases). If we don't become a leader, we lack any kind of moral imperative to put pressure on India and China, and if energy use projections continue, their carbon output will surpass ours in the future.


And on a side note, I apologize if anyone is offended by my argumentative tone. It's what happens when you work a job in an isolated area without television or radio and spend your off hours drinking beer, playing cards, and arguing about politics and the state of the world with other off-duty folks!

 

[badaxemoo]

My answer <jokeing>would have been to nuke China and India since they are the ones who are producing most of the carbon.

That's not correct.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sc ... sions.html

In the future it might be. That's why the problem requires an international solution.

 

[Saltydawg]

The Earth has been around a lot longer than we have and it has gone through many warming and cooling periods.

What if this warming trend is something that actually needs to occur for the Earth to remain healthy and if we interfere we are actually screwing something up?
What if we interfere, the earth isn't allowed to warm, and for some unknown reason it spirals into an iceage because we interfered?

There is so much unkown that simply jumping in and taking action to prevent something (global warming) might be worse than if we let it happen and learn to adapt and deal with it?

We aren't even sure we're the cause of it, we can't even accurately predict the weather from day to day, and computer technology as a whole is so young that any sort of computer modeling of the next 100 years is almost garanteed to be wrong.

Current computer models have made lots of predictions and yet empirical data up to this point has never matched the modeling of weather changes.

When a hurricane forms the computer models spit out multiple possible paths, often varying by thousands of miles.
When we get a snow storm move through the area the weather forecast here makes predictions like 6-24 inches, which is quite a large variable.
Climatologists and meteorologists have never been able to accurately predict the next drought areas or severe flood areas in advance.

The ammount we don't understand about the weather and global climate still far outweighs what we do know and anyone making long term predictions about what our weather is going to do is just spewing something similar to what my cows leave behind them in the pasture after eating a large bale of hay.

We simply don't know enough yet.

It doesn't hurt to keep learning though.

 

[Horse Guy]

"For rural people, electric cars and mass transportation aren't reasonable options. As individuals we can't do much at all about the explosive growth in fossil fuel consumption in India and China."

You see thats just it! There is nothing that we can do.
A car is usless to me. Look the school bus cant even get to my house half the time in the winter. I have to take my gas guzzling truck to the neibhours house and meet the bus.
Where am I going to get the bucks to buy a solar house or to build my own wind mill? A new dually diesel truck would be nice but I sure as heck dont have the $ to buy one.
Florecent light bulbs are not going to make any difference in the big sceme of things.
I tell you one thing, I would eat a bullet before I moved to some town and rode on public transit.
BTW The west is a world leader as far as the enviroment goes because we develope all the high tech that keeps emmisions as low as possible.
If somebody does come up with cold fusion it wont be China or Russia.
Anyway im sick and tired of turning on the news every night and having some expert tell me that everything thats wrong with the world is my fault. Sorry for being born{Im laughing}{wink}{jokeing}

 

[Horse Guy]

My answer <jokeing>would have been to nuke China and India since they are the ones who are producing most of the carbon.

That's not correct.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sc ... sions.html

In the future it might be. That's why the problem requires an international solution.

It depends on how you break it down. example per person or per nation.

 

[john250]

We aren't even sure we're the cause of it, we can't even accurately predict the weather from day to day, and computer technology as a whole is so young that any sort of computer modeling of the next 100 years is almost garanteed to be wrong.

You've summed up my skepticisms nicely.
If we can't predict next weeks weather how are we so be nice sure that the climate will have Canadians growing cotton.

 

[badaxemoo]

My answer <jokeing>would have been to nuke China and India since they are the ones who are producing most of the carbon.

That's not correct.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sc ... sions.html

In the future it might be. That's why the problem requires an international solution.

It depends on how you break it down. example per person or per nation.

If you look carefully at the chart, you'll see that it lists both total emissions and per capita emissions.

Currently our total emissions are higher than India and China combined, and our per capita emissions dwarf theirs.

 

[Horse Guy]

My answer <jokeing>would have been to nuke China and India since they are the ones who are producing most of the carbon.

That's not correct.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sc ... sions.html

In the future it might be. That's why the problem requires an international solution.

It depends on how you break it down. example per person or per nation.

If you look carefully at the chart, you'll see that it lists both total emissions and per capita emissions.

Currently our total emissions are higher than India and China combined, and our per capita emissions dwarf theirs.

Here is a question about that graph.
Now im under the impression that right now China has huge coal to oil plants in Africa and they are in the process of building over 500 more. Now how many of these plants will be within its borders I dont know. But my question is are chinas foreign power plants included in its emmision graph?
Really im confused because I here on the radio all the time that 80% of the worlds emmisions come from China and India. Seems like either side of the arguement can twist the statistics around to suite their cause. Anyway I just honestly cant see what can be done about it besides destroying the American economy, causing a world recession and going back into the dark ages.
I get really worried when I hear these experts crying about livestock emmisions{CH4 or something}{methane gas} and saying that something has to be done about it because of global warming.

 

[hurleyjd]

I will agree with saltydawg about the earth. The earth has been in a constant change since its beginning. I do not think that man is smart enough in thier so called wisdom to prevent it. The earth will take care of its self. To many people, something natural will thin them out. Has happened before and will happen again. Just takes time. Can you change the weather, no people have tried it for ever.
Ever think about the indians in South America that bundled little kids up and put them in the mountians as a sacrfice to the weather Gods. Do enough kids over a length of time and the weather will change. Just like Texas weather if you do not like it stay around it will change. Could be the gravitationly pull on the our plantery system that earth is in has placed it closer to the sun. Who knows the anwser, I surely do not.
When the arugement was going about Nancy Pelosi plane, it was said that it produced 10,000 lbs of polutants per hour.
Does any one remember the picture that showed how many planes were in the air when 911 happen. Multiply that by 10000 lbs per hour. I am sure that it would be a high number. No one ever talks about the planes, only the cars and vechicles on the ground. I guess us humans will have to adapt, if it gets to hot then we can sit in the shade. Along another line every one wants cheap electricity, but when the power companys try to furnish it no one wants the type of generation plants that make it. Such as Nuculer, clean coal plants. This list could go on, The windmills ruin some one view that they had before. I think a person with the windmill on their land drawing 7 to 8 hundred a month on them thinks they look okay. Same as a sour gas well it it is paying you royality then it does not stink as bad.

 

[chrisy]

I was watching a programme on the Volcano Krakatoa, which blew its top in 1883, and it said the amount of Magma and dust clouded the whole sky and it lingered well into the 20th Century, and cooled the earth by at least 10 deg's, perhaps now that that cloud has settled, that is why we are getting a little warmer also. not saying the other things don't contribute.

They have perfected an electric car here, but our Government has put the kibosh on it, and we all know why..... it will take away the revenue on taxes from Petrol and Oil. that is just IMO.

You are kidding right what do you think fuels the power plant?
Fossil fuel to make electricity, if the power plant plant is not fueled by nuclear what a joke.
Talk about an energy loser thats it, power generation is one of the most polluting industries we have.

this car was run on electicity made from the recycled rubbish (Garbage) collected from the weekly bin-mens collection from household rubbish. We have a few plants here creating energy from rubbish. we also have wind turbines in many areas. no fossil fuels were used in the trial run of the car. so no joke.

 

[Horse Guy]

I was watching a programme on the Volcano Krakatoa, which blew its top in 1883, and it said the amount of Magma and dust clouded the whole sky and it lingered well into the 20th Century, and cooled the earth by at least 10 deg's, perhaps now that that cloud has settled, that is why we are getting a little warmer also. not saying the other things don't contribute.

They have perfected an electric car here, but our Government has put the kibosh on it, and we all know why..... it will take away the revenue on taxes from Petrol and Oil. that is just IMO.

You are kidding right what do you think fuels the power plant?
Fossil fuel to make electricity, if the power plant plant is not fueled by nuclear what a joke.
Talk about an energy loser thats it, power generation is one of the most polluting industries we have.

this car was run on electicity made from the recycled rubbish (Garbage) collected from the weekly bin-mens collection from household rubbish. We have a few plants here creating energy from rubbish. we also have wind turbines in many areas. no fossil fuels were used in the trial run of the car. so no joke.

The main problem with hybreds and electric cars besides not really being feasable in cold weather is the life of the vehicle. Its about ten years. Then you have to dispose of the vehicle which is basically just a big battery so in other words its hazardous goods. Its not like you can recycle them or even crush them and put them in a landfill.

 

[chrisy]

I was watching a programme on the Volcano Krakatoa, which blew its top in 1883, and it said the amount of Magma and dust clouded the whole sky and it lingered well into the 20th Century, and cooled the earth by at least 10 deg's, perhaps now that that cloud has settled, that is why we are getting a little warmer also. not saying the other things don't contribute.

They have perfected an electric car here, but our Government has put the kibosh on it, and we all know why..... it will take away the revenue on taxes from Petrol and Oil. that is just IMO.

You are kidding right what do you think fuels the power plant?
Fossil fuel to make electricity, if the power plant plant is not fueled by nuclear what a joke.
Talk about an energy loser thats it, power generation is one of the most polluting industries we have.

this car was run on electicity made from the recycled rubbish (Garbage) collected from the weekly bin-mens collection from household rubbish. We have a few plants here creating energy from rubbish. we also have wind turbines in many areas. no fossil fuels were used in the trial run of the car. so no joke.

The main problem with hybreds and electric cars besides not really being feasable in cold weather is the life of the vehicle. Its about ten years. Then you have to dispose of the vehicle which is basically just a big battery so in other words its hazardous goods. Its not like you can recycle them or even crush them and put them in a landfill.

Ah! this is what I was saying they have perfected this one it is totally recyclable and very reliable, and will last longer than the normal electric car, that is why IMO they have said no to it.