Global Warming Watch

[Muslimwoman]

Hi Grey. Love your optimism, just wish I could share it. I feel the planet is in pain and is now showing severe symptoms of that man-made sickness. I have seen the pictures of drought in Australia, unbelievable that your PM could deny global warming. Unfortunately we caused the sickness, so are now responsible for finding the cure and repairing the damage.

Of course history shows serious variations in global temperature but I believe tended to change over long periods of time. Just think how much the temperature has changed since we were kids. Just 30 years ago winter was in 'winter', now you have to travel to see snow in winter. The UK also did the "what global warming" thing, yet this summer huge swathes of land were flooded, in areas that records say have never been flooded before.

Last night I watched a very old re-run of a British sitcom (late 60's early 70's I would say) and guess what they were discussing - oh you guessed, global warming and the o-zone layer. So it's not as though we only just discovered the problem. The issue is are we, the people of the world, prepared to change our ways and replace our 50 spotlights for something less harmful to the environment? I have the problem of air conditioning, in 45 degree I get really sick without it but I know the damage it does - DILEMMA.

[wil]

Originally Posted by flowperson

happy to see Al Gore's movie come out and become internationally popular.

It pretty much drowned out the naysayers here in a final way I hope.

Al Gore's movie did no favors for Global Warming research. His 'documentary' was so one sided and sensationalist worst case scenarios and bad statistics that it hurt serious debate and discussion.

We can't compare today's tempature's to tempatures 100-200 years ago as we were in an anomoly at that time as well. When I was going to school in the 60's our science books all talked about the concerns of another ice age (following the mini ice age which peaked (valleyed?) in 1850).

The ebbs and flows of our earth environment every 1-200,000 years are inevitable...the poles have melted before and WILL melt again. The glaciers have covered much of the globe and will again...we cannot stop either situation and if we were to attempt to we'd screw it up royally.

So we've been in a warming trend since the mini ice age ending in 1850...exactly what was the world/US doing then to increase the temperature so dramatically in those 50 years?? note the average temperature from 1900-2000 didn't increase as much as 1850-1900...prior to cars, electric power plants, massive oil and coal burning, rainforest depletion, industrial age etc.

If man has anything to do with temperature change I'd say the change is 50-100 years behind whatever we do...and is minimal...the real change comes from our natural earth cycles...they are just damned inconvenient when it comes to waterfront property and real estate prices...

[Muslimwoman]

Wil you are a non believer. Quick everyone grab your torches and flaming pitchforks and lets go to the castle and kill the monster.

[wil]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

Quick everyone grab your torches and flaming pitchforks

Now I like the concept...flaming pitch forks...but torches and flaming pitchforks are you not contributing?

BTW my flourescent bulbs don't work in my dimmer lights...back to inkydinkydoos until I figure something out.

Also taking the hot air out of my house with AC and sending it blowing outside...yet another contribution eh?

I think the real problem is simply overpopulation....the flooding and searing heat shall reduce it...as well as the wars??

[Muslimwoman]

Look everyone Wil wants to massacre nations, I knew he was too good to be true, he was lulling us into a false sense of security.

Well can I use candles then, not quite right for a mob but may have to do under the circumstances. Although what the farmer is going to think of us burning his pitch forks I just don't know.

[cyberpi]

As the cycle of a hydrocarbon burning engine is increased for more power, what must correspondingly increase to keep it cool?

If a person is imprisoned without food and water, which will he die for a lack of? What common thing must both the tree, and a person have to stay alive?

If airborn CO and CO2 molecules are pollutants, and the air were somehow ridded of these polutants... then everything GREEN (plants, trees) would immediately DIE of suffocation... followed by every living thing that depended on them. Food for thought?

Originally Posted by Wil

note the average temperature from 1900-2000 didn't increase as much as 1850-1900...prior to cars, electric power plants, massive oil and coal burning, rainforest depletion, industrial age etc.

Trees were not logged and burned in the 1800's?

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Wil

note the average temperature from 1900-2000 didn't increase as much as 1850-1900...prior to cars, electric power plants, massive oil and coal burning, rainforest depletion, industrial age etc.

Are you saying this data is wrong?
Image:Instrumental Temperature Record.png - Global Warming Art
Image:1000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - Global Warming Art

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

In one way I am quite pleased that global warming has come home to roost. Our energy guzzling societies were never going to get the message while it only affected other people at the other side of the world. Now, just maybe, our governments will start to take this seriously.

You lost me... is Egypt not taking global warming seriously?

If you think global warming is decreased by using less energy, then in the USA it is not government and it is not business that have the largest control over energy use. It is people... the consumer. Even a business lives or dies by whether or not the people will do business with it... so in the USA it is the people who mostly have that control.

In the other corner, what will it take to get people in 2nd and 3rd world countries to curb their population growth? Governments? I can understand two children. But when it goes beyond replenishing the population... who is really interested in energy or resource sustainability?

[wil]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Are you saying this data is wrong?
Image:Instrumental Temperature Record.png - Global Warming Art
Image:1000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - Global Warming Art

Quite the contrary, I believe that data may be accurate.

Note they love to start the charts during the middle or end of the little ice age...to make it more dramatic.

Note they are talking the last 1-2,000 years at the most. As it proves their point most succinctly.

We are talking about warming and cooling trends that last 1-200,000 years any isolated timeframe of 1% or less can show whatever fluctuation one needs to prove their point.

1860 was an anomaly in the past 50,000 years....why start at that cold point if not to distort the analysis??

One must also be aware that when it comes to data collection whether it is global temperature, ozone holes, the lions share of the accurate data is the last 50 years...and while the populated areas have records we have no consistent data for the poles until recently...our historical record for temperatures comes from a variety of methods utilizing core samples of ice and fossil records of tree growth etc...we do know that the dino's did not roam these continents in the cold temps we have today!

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

You lost me... is Egypt not taking global warming seriously?

I was speaking as an English woman there Cyberpi. Sorry am back in the Uk for a while so am having an identity crisis. I was thinking about the huge chunks of India that are disappearing into the sea when I wrote it.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

If you think global warming is decreased by using less energy, then in the USA it is not government and it is not business that have the largest control over energy use. It is people... the consumer. Even a business lives or dies by whether or not the people will do business with it... so in the USA it is the people who mostly have that control.

It is in all western countries, indeed all countries. I often say that the £, $, € and Yen are the key to solving such problems but getting past the apathy is so difficult. Yes everyone cares until you say give up one of your cars and take the train or recycle your rubbish. There is an issue I am very concerned about, incineration plants burn rubbish at the same temperature as ground zero during a nuclear explotion. Now, I wonder what that is doing to the ozone layer??? We have the key, now we just need the will to use it.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

In the other corner, what will it take to get people in 2nd and 3rd world countries to curb their population growth? Governments? I can understand two children. But when it goes beyond replenishing the population... who is really interested in energy or resource sustainability?

Good point. China have of course tried this but imo it has been a terrible tragedy, all those babies girls murdered, all those forced abortions. Are we going to force other nations down that road? It is another issue for the world to find a solution to but can we, the so called 'civilised, educated' west really play "you are doing something wrong so we can too?"

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

It is another issue for the world to find a solution to but can we, the so called 'civilised, educated' west really play "you are doing something wrong so we can too?"

I was just countering the mindless propaganda against the USA with the presentation of a problem that largely contributes to global warming in a country with less resources but with 50 million people and growing lined up along and polluting a single but very important river.

You see, while you fault the USA for global warming... I fault Egypt and the countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The wetlands destruction and the destruction of what use to be forests in the 'infertile crescent' is in my opinion the single greatest cause of global warming. In my uncivil, and thus educated mind: Northern Africa and the Middle East are the land masses of the planet that can best be used to reverse global warming... by returning the wet lands and the forests that were once destroyed there. I speak honestly... I find that the greatest impact to reduce global warming exists in Northern Africa and in the infertile crescent. Why?

I submit that CO2 is not the cause of global warming but it is a correlated byproduct of what causes it. H2O in the atmosphere is the real global warmer, the insulation, and it is a darn good thing because otherwise the planet would be sub-freezing. Yet the temperature does need to be sustained otherwise these melting glaciers and rapidly changing ecosystems may have a rapidly changing impact... which will cause massive destruction.

Of what I envision: one of the best ways the people of the USA can help to counter the environmental destruction caused by the Egyptians (in part) is to study and implement ways to improve the surface area and solar target area in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Coast... all the way over to Northern Africa. The goal is to increase evaporation and to accelerate the water cycle. You see, basically energy is being wasted by NOT being used. Those hurricanes that are moving Westerly towards the USA are powered by enormous amounts of energy. That is... WASTED energy. That energy needs to be harnessed and put to more productive use. The exact opposite of what you claim, MW. The USA needs to use more energy... more solar energy to increase the water cycle and to help cool the planet. It is the water cycle that cools the planet. It is the plants and trees, with the energy of the sun, that drives the water cycle. It is the destruction of forests and wetlands that have greatly caused a shift towards global warming.

When water (or anything) evaporates, it increases the local air pressure. Once H2O is evaporated it will absorb the sun's energy and expand (do work). The daily local air pressure increase is ultimately what drives the winds around the planet faster than the spin of the planet itself... except at the equator where the radius of the planet is so large and the evaporation not able to keep up that the wind travels to the West. It takes this energy to pump the wasted heat off the planet. When the water vapor rises, condenses into clouds, and falls back to the planet, it does many good things. It cleans the air, waters the plants, fills the rivers, and cleans the surface of the planet... it ultimately sends entropy leaving the planet as long wave radiation. Whatever energy the planet absorbs from the sun daily must be equalized with degraded energy or entropy that leaves the planet. That degraded local heat and entropy is no longer of use to us and it must be pumped into outer space. Getting it past the insulation in the roof (the atmosphere) is done in large part via the water cycle. The goal of making the day cooler, the night warmer, the summer cooler, the winter warmer... is best done with water. Another way of cooling is at night when water vapor condenses, releasing its energy and it finds a good clean radiation path into the night sky. That cooling process is improved by improving the evaporative surface area of the planet with trees and plants. With a higher frequency of the water cycle the entropy is driven off the planet faster... there is a maximum frequency set by the day / night cycle, but the accelerator... the on/off switch to nature's air conditioner pump... is controlled by the nature of the surface area.

I find that the carbon dioxide in the air and in the Ocean is a resource that can be used to grow plants on the surface of the Ocean... research into making large gardens with the plants that already grow on the surface in the middle of the Atlantic should be furthered. Something ultimately needs to be above and floating on the surface of the Ocean to improve the surface evaporation, and I recommend using whatever God provides... trees and plants. That would have multiple good outcomes. One of the good outcomes would be to control and prevent hurricanes altogether. Another would be to increase precipitation in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Certainly things below the surface that absorb light and CO2 are good, but I want a solar target above the air / water interface that wicks water up and presents it on a leaf of low thermal mass for evaporation.

Another technique to accelerate things would be to pipe sea water over the land masses of Mexico, Northern Africa, and the Middle East... evaporate the water... and then pipe it back using water as the carrier but with a higher concentration of salt. The coastal areas are the places to do this, but the further inland the water is piped the better... at the expense and energy cost of the pipe and the pumping. What better place to evaporate water than over the hot desert land in the lowest humidity? This needs to be on a massive scale. The effort put into pumping hydrocarbons all over the world needs to be met by increasing the water cycle. Think of it as a massive desalination plant wherein you don't get the fresh water from it until it is taken up by the sun, dropped back as the rain and given in part to the plants and the lakes. Realize that the entire land mass of the USA fits within Northern Africa. There is no reason that Mexico, Northern Africa and the Middle East can not be made as green as the USA is. Once a forest or wetlands is grown... it is self protecting by the fresh water that it retains and evaporates.

Or... if you believe as the press tells you that carbon dioxide is a poison then please stop breathing because you are just polluting the environment. Life here requires cycles and I am not ashamed to exhale carbon dioxide and to burn hydrocarbons... for productive use. I am ashamed that most people do not use their minds to think beyond the mindless press... or to seek God for new answers.

[flowperson]

Hi wil...

I know we've had this interchange before. I agree with you that there is a cyclic nature to the rise and fall in Earth's temperature patterns. And that's a good thing because it lends a degree of predictability to the activities of our atmosphere. But this discussion has magically devolved into a discussion of specificities, and as we all know that's where the devil is. This must be , and can only be analyzed from a systemic set of viewpoints, and from all indications we are definitely seeing an overall system headed for major periods of gross imbalance, which translates into more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns.

In the present case we're witnessing something quite different from normal fluctuation patterns if I'm not mistaken. The latest studies predict that the Earth's weather extremes will even out for a while over the near term, but predict that even more extreme swings in the unpredictabilty of weather events and their consequences will then resume for an extended and open ended period after that interim period.

As I've mentioned before, all natural systems are chaotic systems, and the introduction of unknown or unusual inputs usually connotes unknown conditions over the long term until functioning patterns of regularity are re-established. The massive burning of fossil fuels is not comparable to logging burnoffs in the 1800's. This systemic change pattern is what is actually happening with all of this. The last fifty to one hundred years of environmental abuse by us is a new factor in the planet's balancing systems.

Furthermore, chaotic episodes in the prevailing conditions are likely to amplify themselves over time through feedback mechanisms if the aggrivating conditions are not curtailed or somehow otherwise compensated for. I believe that the point of Mr. Gore's film was to illuminate these scenarios and their likelihood.

In short we have a certain window of opportunity to do some real things in all of this to dampen some of the chaos inducing environmental harm that we are continuing to do to our home. But some experts observe that we may have already passed critical tipping points, and that whatever happens from now on will result in a far different set of environments than we have ever had to deal with over an extended period in the past 12,000 years.

That's a very serious set of problems to deal with.

flow....

[wil]

Originally Posted by flowperson

...whatever happens from now on will result in a far different set of environments than we have ever had to deal with over an extended period in the past 12,000 years.
that's a very serious set of problems to deal with.

flow....

I think you may be exactly right...man evolved on this planet when man could evolve... prior to our current climate this planet was not too conducive to man and our needs of buildings staying standing, pipes staying in the ground. We've only really put ourselves on edge the past couple hundred years... but now we rely on the earth not shifting volcanoes not popping up, continents not moving and weather not changing so dramatically...

It has been a lovely 12,000 years....pick a time in the past millions of years when you feel the temperature and environment would have been more suitable... 12,000 out of millions what miniscule percentage of time are we speaking of?

[flowperson]

Originally Posted by wil

I think you may be exactly right...man evolved on this planet when man could evolve... prior to our current climate this planet was not too conducive to man and our needs of buildings staying standing, pipes staying in the ground. We've only really put ourselves on edge the past couple hundred years... but now we rely on the earth not shifting volcanoes not popping up, continents not moving and weather not changing so dramatically...

It has been a lovely 12,000 years....pick a time in the past millions of years when you feel the temperature and environment would have been more suitable... 12,000 out of millions what miniscule percentage of time are we speaking of?

Right you are wil...to quote Pogo, an archaic comic strip for most people these days, we have met the enemy, and they is us !

I would rather live now than in any of the millions of past years, but the way that most of us are existing, and not really living these days, is not going to be sustainable unless some of us can go elsewhere and start it all anew somehow. Any suggestions mountain man ? Got any buds with some spare time/space equipment for rent and temporary usage?

flow....

[wil]

Originally Posted by flowperson

Right you are wil...to quote Pogo, an archaic comic strip for most people these days, we have met the enemy, and they is us !

I would rather live now than in any of the millions of past years, but the way that most of us are existing, and not really living these days, is not going to be sustainable unless some of us can go elsewhere and start it all anew somehow. Any suggestions mountain man ? Got any buds with some spare time/space equipment for rent and temporary usage?

flow....

I know this is the science section...but could it all be divine? We evolved at the opportune era with just enough time to technologically advance enough to save ourselves...too much more time we'd get complacent...so instead one issue after another....we'll solve the whole war, greed, love thing as we work together to survive...

I only know the USA....and I've got three rendezvous points to make it to currently should the whole shootin match fall apart. The families will survive...