I'd like to know what all of you preaching environmental apocalypse think we should do about it.
China doesn't care about global warning, India doesn't care aobut global warming, and the US and the rest of the west aren't going to make any unneccesary geopolitical sacrifices for some hippie theory*. And yes, the "methane catastrophe" can be considered "out there." And if there is goign to be a methane catastrophe, we've got about as much chance of avoiding it as avoiding a gamma ray burst.
Look geniuses, you can't change the world without changing the market. It isn't going to be possible to just outlaw dirty energy use, or even reduce it severely, because you'll paralyze agriculture, commerce, and pretty much all economic activity. A horse-powered US agriculture wouldn't be able to feed US people. If you don't know why hydrogen powered cars are not currently feasible, you don't get to participate in this debate.
[biofuel rant]
What really makes me angry is that the environmental nazis are the same people who try to cut US government funding of biofuel (like ethanol and soy diesel) production. It isn't 1990 anymore--biofeuls and their BYPRODUCTS have a net energy gain. You know how nylon, natural gas, and plastics are byproducts of petroleum? Well, biofuels have that property, too--and this industry is in its infancy--new uses for byproducts are being discovered every day.[/biofuel rant]
Like it or not, the blood of civilization as we know it is fossil fuels. If you can develop some kind of sustainable and cheap energy, work on that. Getting people to believe in your global warming predictions isn't going to help much.
*I do think that the release of stored CO2 has an effect on the climate. I don't think the doomsday global warming squad or environmental zealots are trustworthy crews to get stats from, though. Nor do I think it's going to have much effect on anyone (I know) in the next 250 years.
650,000 Years of Carbon Dioxide Can't Be Wrong
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Quote:Original post by cyric74
Average Joes elected members of Congress into their position of power, and continue to elect the same people. You can't pass off all responsibility by pointing a finger at some rich guy and scream, "His fault!" just because you don't like the fact that he's rich.
The fact that he's rich doesn't mean he's without sin either as you are suggesting. In the end it not the fact of being rich that is the problem, it's the policies that too many rich people push that are the problem. The ignorance of the average joe is a problem too, but nothing near the problem caused by the policies pushed on Congress by lobbyists for the super rich. To continue the metaphor I laid down before, you're blaming the players on the losing team rather than the referees or the players on the winning team that bought the referees off after they paid to have the rules written to their favor.
Quote:Original post by cyric74
How many average people do you know own SUVs or pick-up trucks, but just use them for driving around the city? I can probably name fifty aquaintances who fit that bill. Rich white people exploiting the masses didn't force them to purchase that car--it was a personal choice, and one that harms the environment. The Average Joe doesn't give a shit, honestly, so you can just as easily direct your anger at them.
I know a few but I see it a lot. Rich white people set forward the temptation and sweetened it up with low interest finance and such. Who got Congress to subsidize the purchase of Hummers? Was it the yahoos that you would blame or the people that pay lobbyists to push these kinds of things through Congress? Who paid for the incessant broadcasting of television commercials that give the yahoos the idea that SUV's are great for driving around town? The Average Joe doesn't give a shit, but he's not nearly as responsible for the situation as the people that made the decisions that brought it about. The problem isn't one car, the problem is millions of cars. You can't blame the Average Joe for that, you'll have to blame him in aggregate, millions of Average Joes. And if you're going to take that perspective, then you're just blaming the poor for the choices of the rich, ok, blaming the middlings for the choices of the super rich - the income disparity is so huge that 20 or 30 thousand dollars of income won't make a difference anyway - the gap will still be astounding. After that I suppose you'll be blaming the yahoos for the collapse of GM, saying it was their fault because they stopped buying Detroit gas guzzlers. The reality is that it was the fault of management not the consumer. It wasn't the consumer that wanted vehicles with poor gas mileage that's just what management gave them and now that gas prices have doubled and tripled it's management that's been caught flat footed.
Quote:Original post by cyric74
I agree--populations of people who are somewhat trusting and cooperate with other populations around them are better off in the long run. Our modern concept of competition is very new--Americans 100 years ago didn't really have to worry about market prices in China, or oil prices in the middle east. Globalization has done remarkable things for our civilization, but it has also taken a toll on the environment and society.
I wasn't thinking about populations as much as I was thinking about individuals working together in the raising of children. You really can't get closer to survival than that. You stated earlier, Still a trait of biological evolution: Get as much as you can, as fast as you can. The more you have, the higher a guarantee of genetic survival. Even if they don't actually intend to pass on genetic material, we're just wired that way. I don't think we're wired that way, I think we're culturally conditioned to be that way. I think we are wired for cooperation as surely as we are wired to suckle. I don't think our concept of competition is new, I think it's as old as the first war. Perhaps that came about because we are wired for fear, but that simply raises the question of mixing is and ought. That we are wired for fear doesn't mean we should remain fearful. At any rate, I don't see what point jumping to discussing international markets serves. Not when you're talking about fat people, gluttony and genetic survival.
Quote:Original post by abstractimmersionQuite well said!
If you can develop some kind of sustainable and cheap energy, work on that. Getting people to believe in your global warming predictions isn't going to help much.
By the way, for some reason or other, nukes are still considered cheap, although sustainable is a different question (uranium doesn't just grow on trees like oil does, and it's a lot more difficult to store the waste -- you can't just blow it into the atmosphere). On this point, the government of Ontario is looking to promote my local atomic bomb as a model of efficiency and usefulness if they can ever get the A stn. reconstruction under control, as the province has a goal of phasing out all the coal fired plants by 2009 or so and wants to cut down on buying surplus electricity from elsewhere.
Quote:Original post by LessBread
To continue the metaphor I laid down before, you're blaming the players on the losing team rather than the referees or the players on the winning team that bought the referees off after they paid to have the rules written to their favor.
I blame the crowd that pays to watch and thus enables the corrupt game.
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Quote:Original post by coldacid
Is the only data available the CO2 levels of 650,000 years ago and the levels today? Or did the core sample actually show the levels for the entire span of time? For certain, it wouldn't be a straight-up line, but at the same time, the most change probably came from between 1800 and the early 1920s. I doubt that since the 1920s the levels of CO2 have grown anywhere as dramatically as they did during the industrial age.
There is another ice core that goes back 400,000 years give or take. These core samples show the levels for the entire span. This core is basically a two mile long cylinder of ice.
We still live in an industrial age, we no longer live in the Victorian era. Today's industry is cleaner but more widespread, just like automobiles. At any rate, I stumbled across this, Ocean CO2 may 'harm marine life', which goes to answer part of your question.
Quote:
...
Since the beginning of the industrial age around 1800, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 380 ppm.
Although it seems a lot, many scientists were surprised: the extra CO2 that turned up in the atmosphere was only about half of the total amount emitted.
Following an international 10-year survey, researchers found the "missing" CO2 - it had been absorbed into the sea.
"The ocean has removed 48% of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and cement manufacturing," said Christopher Sabine, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Seattle, US.
"If the ocean had not removed 118 billion metric tonnes of carbon between 1800 and 1994, the CO2 level in the atmosphere would be about 55 parts per million greater than currently observed."
...
Quote:Original post by abstractimmersion
I'd like to know what all of you preaching environmental apocalypse think we should do about it.
China doesn't care about global warning, India doesn't care aobut global warming, and the US and the rest of the west aren't going to make any unneccesary geopolitical sacrifices for some hippie theory*. And yes, the "methane catastrophe" can be considered "out there." And if there is goign to be a methane catastrophe, we've got about as much chance of avoiding it as avoiding a gamma ray burst.
the fact that its hard to avoid doesnt disqualify the theory. saying: the theory is plausible, but i cant do anything about is a potentially valid stance. saying: i dont want to do anything about it so ill resort to baselessly attacking the theory, kindof undermines your credibility.
Quote:
Look geniuses, you can't change the world without changing the market. It isn't going to be possible to just outlaw dirty energy use, or even reduce it severely, because you'll paralyze agriculture, commerce, and pretty much all economic activity. A horse-powered US agriculture wouldn't be able to feed US people. If you don't know why hydrogen powered cars are not currently feasible, you don't get to participate in this debate.
while the market is a very powerfull force with a will of its own, i do not subscribe to the far right 'the market is god' doctrine.
outlawing dirty energy use is indeed not possible, but the original intent of the kyoto protocol: taxing CO2 emmisions to increase short term personal incentive in cleaner energy, is actually a pretty good idea.
Quote:
[biofuel rant]
What really makes me angry is that the environmental nazis are the same people who try to cut US government funding of biofuel (like ethanol and soy diesel) production. It isn't 1990 anymore--biofeuls and their BYPRODUCTS have a net energy gain. You know how nylon, natural gas, and plastics are byproducts of petroleum? Well, biofuels have that property, too--and this industry is in its infancy--new uses for byproducts are being discovered every day.[/biofuel rant]
biofuels suck mayor cock.
the other week i was reading an article with someone throwing around some huge, supposedly impressive numbers about the amount of net energy biofuels would yield per square kilometer. a short calculation showed that even if we were to cover this entire country with their biofuel crops, that still would only have a yearly output compareable to one nuclear powerplant. this country needs a whole array of nuclear powerplants to sustain the state its in.
[Edited by - Eelco on November 29, 2005 4:58:11 PM]
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Quote:Original post by Silvermyst
I blame the crowd that pays to watch and thus enables the corrupt game.
Blame the spectators instead of those that make the rules, that play the game, that make the decisions? Why don't you blame the promoter that charges money for the tickets? And what about the people that built the stadium or trimmed the grass on the field where the game is played? Would you blame the crowd if attendance was free?
Quote:Original post by Vasant56Quote:Original post by BerwynIrish
I appreciate that you can own up to a mistake, but you're the victim of yet another con. Corollations only entered the discussion because certain people were allowed to get away with falsely maintianing that the conclusions in question were arrived through corollation. Reread polly's post on the previous page if you still don't understand why this is wrong.
I'm confused on how I was "conned".. I was replying directly to polly's claim.
Your quote of me here is my response to your
Quote:I stand corrected on that point, but you still can't say that correlations are valid.
The con is the straw man that anybody here has arrived at a conclusion through corrolation.
Quote:Original post by LessBreadQuote:Original post by Eelco
first of all, id rather not push back the clock at all.
but that thing about boiling oceans is interesting, i never heard of that. ill look it up, do you have any links worth checking out?
Context makes a difference. I saw Diodor's comment and I thought boiling water not volcanic vents. Hot Vents, Hydrothermal Vent Tube Worms, Hydrothermal Environments on the Ocean Floor.
The genomes of bacteria such as these hold great interest for evolutionary biologists seeking insight into the earliest life on Earth. It is hypothesized that life originated in a high-heat, low-oxygen environment like that most suited to A. aeolicus ...
i dont know what context you are referring to, but i got the boiling oceans thing directly from the 'more like venus' link you gave me. it had nothing to do with oceanic vents.
Quote:Quote:Original post by Eelco
an argument seemingly aimed at introducing elementary school children to the subject. we know a lot of other effects DO intervene, such as the greenhouse potential of gasses saturating when virtually no light of that wavelength leaves earth any longer anyway, more evaporation meaning more clouds meaning much less light reaching earth, radiative emission being strongly superlinear with temperature, i could go on for a while.
extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. i suppose brushing aside anything that might contradict your theory is extraordinary proof in some way, but not a positive one.
I don't think their argument was aimed at elementary school children. You can think of it as the introductory section to a book. Their point probably wasn't to convince uber skeptics like yourself but simply to put forward the idea.
uber skeptic eh? im sorry but i cant help of being reminded of the often returning religous debates, where i am labelled an uber sceptic for not believing the bible is true because it say so in the bible.
Quote:Quote:Original post by Eelco
boiling oceans, no, but any realistic scenario seems managable for us as a species.
If we start making adjustments now, but if the methane in the permafrost and on the ocean floor starts to sublimate... A methane catastrophe is abrupt because it can be initiated by a major submarine landslide, which can happen in a matter of days or even hours, or by the venting of vast quantities of seafloor methane over a period of decades. These events can take place in a geological eyeblink. Additional slumping and/or venting can continue for centuries to millennia.
the methane catastrophe link is interesting: i actually read through most of it.
still, its acknowledges there have been a lot of such submarine landslides in the past, the huge one in scandinavia for example, where he is all too quick to skip over the lack of observed effect of that. this isnt the only part where i felt he was presenting his observations in a slanted manner.
still, id like to see some peer review of his theory.
Quote:Original post by LessBread
Blame the spectators instead of those that make the rules, that play the game, that make the decisions? Why don't you blame the promoter that charges money for the tickets? And what about the people that built the stadium or trimmed the grass on the field where the game is played?
I blame all of them, but most of all I blame the crowd. If they refused to participate, there would be no games.
Quote:Would you blame the crowd if attendance was free?
Yes, so you can remove the 'that pays' element from my statement.
We can throw blame around all we want, but in the end, we all participate, and we refuse to change our life-styles enough to solve the problems we complain about.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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