Tanklin has a good point. Perhaps the methane and burp gas produced from the beef farm is just too much for the fragile atmosphere to handle.
Global Warming -- How to Talk to a Skeptic
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Tanklin has a good point. Perhaps the methane and burp gas produced from the beef farm is just too much for the fragile atmosphere to handle.
I read through a few of the links at the site. They seem to be well written.
I researched this fairly thoroughly a number of years ago (6?). The evidence for global climate change was overwhelming, and the evidence has only increased since then.* The evidence that the climate change had human origins was also substantial, although not quite overwhelming. That's my one critique of the site--he should do more to discuss the anthropogenic nature of the climate change.
It is sad to me that so many people view this as a political question rather than a scientific one--as if somehow you have to choose to "believe" or "not believe" in this based on faith in your chosen political party.
* with the exception of the famous "hockey stick" graph, which has been shown to be wrong, possibly due to falsified data. But even without that graph the evidence is still overwhelming.
I agree.
I think all can agree that 'stuff' is happening. Humans have accelerated the natural rates of measured effects. But is it a big deal? That is the debate
LogGrad98
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That shows one event, not a record of them. Temperature changed dramatically in the 20000 to 12000 year timeperiod on this graph. Do we have a list of the species that died out over that timeframe as a mass extinction, as that rise in temperature was far more dramatic than any time period since, I would expect there to have been mass extinctions over that time period.
Someone straighten me out here. As water warms it has the capacity to hold less CO2, so it is sort of a feedback loop that as CO2 levels increase and cause the greenhouse effect the oceans warm and release more CO2. That's true, is it not? Not making a point really, just want to make sure I understand that aspect of things.
♪alt13
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I would just like to add that half of all the electricity that is produced from power plants is lost in transmission. You often hear exaggerated estimates for renewable energy because the assumption is that we would continue with a very large and centralized power grid.
mellow
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Is that any more sad than those who use the issue to further a political agenda that may not do anything to " solve the problem"?
Beantown
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Thanks for pointing out the obvious tard face. But anything man made that is spewing out C02 (car exhaust, electric coal plants, manufacturing plants, etc.) is also spewing out pollutant particles into the air. So the point being if we stop spewing pollutants then we aren't spewing C02.....get it?
Example...solar does not release C02 or pollutants.....electric coal plants spew both.
An electric car does not release C02 or pollutants but a gas engine releases both.
Natural gas combustion doesn't spew out hardly any6particles into the air. That's why we switch from coal to nat gas during the winter inversion months.
♪alt13
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They haven't in the last 600,000 years is what I understand. I'm pretty sure they have however during the permian extinction event. 95% of all life on earth died out.
I do think though that there is no true substitute for oil and Natural gas. It is simply too cheap and too valuable. I believe that every drop of recoverable oil will eventually be burnt. The trick then will be to, as you said, slow down the rate of carbon emissions and also active mitigation.
I think there are some advantages to global warming if we have the forethought to act. For instance(let me put on my tin foil hat for a minute)
We could build giant solar or nuclear powered "distilleries" in the pacific and send the steam through a pipeline over the Sierra Nevadas and plant billions of trees accross Nevada and western Utah. We could create a temperate Rain Forrest.
Beantown
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Yea natural gas is better. But it has huge environmental impacts when coming to extraction and still released carbon. So when comparing it to Solar or an electric car is still falls dramatically short.
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Damn, I wasn't attacking you. I was pointing out the obvious that it seems is not so obvious all the time. CO2 is talked about as if it is a toxic pollutant. It isn't. It doesn't hurt O2 breathers and it benefits plants. The primary harm is in its greenhouse qualities.
♪alt13
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yes that is true.
I think the scariest scenario is one in which we have gotten well into that feed back loop, are beginning to take measures to try and cool the planet, and a natural disaster(mega volcano/ undersea pocket of methane) puts us over the edge much faster than we had anticipated. I know that it isn't terribly likely but we are talking about more than just our species. All of human culture every language silenced forever. We owe it to ourselves and the universe not to play dice with our existence.
That's speculation, which isn't a good starting point for public policy. Neither is trying to force a square [solar panel pipe dream] peg into a round [economic] hole. We need to allow technology to outpace mandate, or it won't be advancement but forced, manipulated, and built on faulty assumptions. We need progress which takes time, not an end result reached tomorrow by dictate. Natural gas has already reduced pollution significantly and has more room to run. It's a pretty damn good intermediate.
For example, how dumb would we feel by forcing a heavy portion of expensive, inefficient PEV into our fleet only to watch Japan come out with a cheaper, higher efficiency hydrogen powered vehicle? Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai are coming to market with some early models.
The easiest way to get rid of a sin is to tax it. Tax pollution and let the market decide how best to avoid paying it. $5/gallon gasoline minimum price would be my preference.
♪alt13
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I like this idea but you have to phase it in and I would like to see a scale that didn't top at $5, but rather had a goal of making gasoline completely economically non viable for Transportation within say 25 years. (sooner or later peak oil will force this anyway).
1) The temperature change from 20000 to 12000 is much less rapid than the change from 1850 to 2000.
2) How can you have a 1960-1990 baseline when 1990 was warmer than 1960 by about half a degree C?
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/images/temp-anom-larg.jpg
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mass-extinctions-tied-to-past-climate-changes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
Climate (warming or cooling) is is a primary suspect in four of the six largest events, and extinction events are measured over hundreds of thousands of years, usually.
We are living in a period of mass extinction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event
Can you specify this agenda? Is it anything more than trying to address the problem?
I mean, you could say that any given thing "may not" do something. If I release a cup in mid-air, it "may not" fall (for example, if I'm in a free-fall environment).
The oceans should store more CO2 as they warm. There are even proposals for taking advantage of this.
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srccs/SRCCS_Chapter6.pdf
However, there is both CO2 and methane trapped in permaforst and tundra. As the latter melt/warm, the former are released.
♪alt13
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The worst case scenario
I'm not playing chicken little here. I'm just throwing this out as a starting point that everyone should agree that we avoid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/new-studies-of-permian-extinction-shed-light-on-the-great-dying.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
I'm not playing chicken little here. I'm just throwing this out as a starting point that everyone should agree that we avoid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/new-studies-of-permian-extinction-shed-light-on-the-great-dying.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0