Not a member? Register Now. * Required
Mighty presumptuous, aren't we? (we as in Humans)
posted by GimmeAbreak on 2/2/2010 - This comment was recommended 2 times
Having once calculated actual carbon emissions by all entities on earth, and taking into account the 10-trillion or so cubic miles of atmosphere, I came to realize it would take over 300,000 years for humans alone to have any impact whatsoever on the carbon balance, and that's if every car, truck, factory, airplane and anus emitted 100% pure smog as exhaust (rather than the 10 parts per Million that we do). The carbon balance is changing because the planet is heating up from within, all by itself, as it does every few million years or so, and to think we humans have caused it is sheer folly. 1000 times more presumptuous is the thought that we humans can stop it. We can't stop the planet from spinning on its axis, and we can't stop it from heating up (or cooling into an ice age). All the arguments, accusations, and global conferences are useless yada yada, which here on my computer look a lot like ASDF, ASDF, ASDF.
view all 8 replies respond to this comment
Mighty presumptuous ????
posted by RonL on 2/3/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
This is meant as only a thought, humans might have the power to make a difference. Our globe is a spinning mass in the vacuum of space, the friction in relation to mass is very small. If a number of rockets (????) were aligned in the best possible direction and fired in unision, the thrust could well affect the increase or reduction of rotational speed of the earth. A mounumental task for sure and maybe a task that would require world corporation in a joint venture, but like global warming, the question would be, Should speed be changed and in which direction?? We should never sell mankind short in what can be done, making the right decision has always been the biggest problem.:)) Ron
respond to this comment
Gasification
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 2/4/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Hey Ron, have you looked at those gasification links? I would think you might get into that? It's early on, so there's still time to be a pioneer.
posted by RonL on 2/5/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Mark, I looked at the two links and do find them of interest, however my first thoughts are to find ways to eliminate combustion of any type of fuel, we have examples all around and within this globe we live on, sun by day provides heat while the spin of the earth causes distribution of thermal differences and the effects are seen in storms producing much damage everywhere. Heat within the earth gives geothermal examples such as Old Faithful in yellowstone national park and others all around the world. One of my personal theriories of some of the unexplained ocean hot spots, would be the floor having fissures that swell open for a brief time, allowing molten lava to flow out and then solidify releasing huge amounts of heat into the cold waters. For all practical purposes there are many examples of what to us are perpetual events, finding ways to mimic any of them in a small way might well be our future. One example of something so simple it has been has been considered a toy and never been given a serious look is the Hero's Turbine. Building a design that houses a generator within the sphere and produces steam by electric heating coils and then using the steam to drive the sphere (a reaction process) which in turn drives the generator, can give a perpetual cycle by reusing the water over and over. This is a micro version of the geothermal process, and for an extreme comparison consider the mechanics of a bubble jet printer. Back to the gasification process of wood, my main question is how long will our trees last if even 1/10th of one percent of the cars around the world started using this method?? I suspect not long, but then, consider how much house energy needs could be met ? we do need to look at every option. Ron
We have to respect the data!
posted by starman on 2/5/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
How then can you explain the Keeling curve? These data are secure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
http://www.dreamgreen.ca/CO2.html
Begging the Question
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 2/5/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
'How, then' is begging the question. You promote 'science' with 'science'.
Humans are affecting atmospheric composition!
posted by starman on 2/8/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
To be specific, the Keeling curve (referenced above) is the graph showing the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide (measured above the thermal inversion layer, far from sources or sinks of CO2) plotted against time. It has shown an annual fluctuation of about 5 parts per million CO2 for the past 50 years. The increase occurs during northern hemisphere winter, arising from the burning of fossil fuels and plant decay, followed by a slightly smaller reduction in summer from the absorption of CO2 by photosynthesis. Superimposed on this annual cycle is a year-on-year increase that roughly matches the amount of fossil fuels burned per year. In 1960 Charles Keeling showed that human activity is directly affecting the Earth's atmosphere. All the data and calculations since then have confirmed this. Gimmeabreak, if you have a calculations that show otherwise, please do publish them.
http://www.dreamgreen.ca/warming.html
Food Fight
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 2/8/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
I don't claim to know the weather, and I don't engage in academic data fights. You seem to draw your own conclusions from whatever the data and how they were taken about 'burning of fossil fuels and plant decay' before asking for reason, as seems to be en vogue with the scientific community. You should realize that there are very few labs out of millions or more in 'the scientific community' that even start their tests with right ingredients. They order from catalogs that are in the business of making provisions for testing equipment and supplies. Usually, the 'scientists' don't even know where their equipment or supplies come from, or how they are produced. Why, then, should I accept the authority of the origins of the data that such equipment and supplies generates when the scientists themselves don't even know the origins of their own equipment and supplies? Still, I feel better about growing lots of trees and using them than I do about mining lots of fuel and burning it. But that's not science, that's just my own feeling.
THE REAL PROBLEM
posted by about new energy on 2/9/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Many may agree on what GimmeAbreak said. However, the main problem is only partially there, way to say that global warming, or cooling, is still too unknown to be eventually settled soon. The real problem is thus very distinct and is about replacing oil, coal, uranium and natural gas in 50 years or so ( I hope 100 years, so that we would have more time !). It is therefore a scientific problem depending on new discoveries and inventions to be finally promoted through practical programs encouraging new ideas agreeing, at least partially, with observed empirical facts instead of beautiful ideas, 'all' of that nature having proved unproductive until now. Many who wish to patent a concrete proposal feel afraid to do so because they worry about a possible refusal by a patent office - also because others might mysteriously retake part of their rejected submission later on (justified or not). This is the first practical problem to solve by finally protecting real intellectual rights before their further commercial version by others. I am waiting for suggestions on this major topic, before I would give my feeling on all this later - I simply need the feedback from others. The second problem, although far from being the last one, would be about funding inventions presenting realistic possibilities, through financial entities not acting as customarily unproductive 'philanthropists' and similar. jack ch
Fuel Refining
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 1/31/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Here's another great, more refined, example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6URPC1YPKM&NR=1
view all 3 replies respond to this comment
CARBON Currency Taxes
posted by Acushla on 2/2/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
When the Freezing Weather Winters ends in the Northern Hemisphere whatever year it ends, the blazing SUN will get hotter causing even green grass to burn. Because of the lies being told that GW CC is being caused by human beings, people will not be prepared for it when it happens. It happened 80 years ago in Outback Queensland. Now there are billions more people on Planet Earth. It is so sad that when the TRUTH is realized it will be too late. Carbon Currency Taxes is being imposed preying on the fears of people who are being told lies because they have their own agenda for doing it.
Mind on government or mind on nature
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 2/2/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Fiat money value depends on regular taxation. The system has become so efficient to train people to think about money and arranging taxes, we all stand to lose when it's realized how far most people are from learning, recognizing, and adjusting to natural changes. I take your warning of natural heat and drought seriously, since the potential of nature to change should always be respected. Another danger a friend of mine mentioned is freezing of pasture. There was a bad freeze sometime around a century ago, he said, and another freeze like that would do much more damage to livestock today. We've become so used to 'respecting' and 'knowing about' banking and money that many of us have lost touch with knowing about and respecting nature.
Carbonaphobia
posted by LtDan on 2/3/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Amen, Acushia! Amen to that!
Challenge
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 2/1/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Given a 10' x 16' room properly insulated in freezing weather, I estimate that 2 hand-fulls of hardwood chunks can maintain a temperature of 68F for 8 hours. I dare the whole world to prove me right or wrong. While you're at it, give something to the Haiti effort. Oh, and by the way, why don't you friend request me on Facebook, Osama? I'm sure we could both learn something from each other.
view all 2 replies respond to this comment
Efficient Heating
posted by LtDan on 2/2/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
The key to your challenge, Mark, is the phrase "properly insulated." If you start with a room that has an ambient temperature of sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, and if the room is completely and perfectly insulated --- think thermos bottle insulated --- that ambient temperature could be maintained and even increased simply by having a person inside the room. No hardwood would be needed. Of course the person would eventualy suffocate, but he or she would be comfortable all the way to the end. * * * I recall that Mark Twain once wrote an essay concerning a room-heating furnace he encountered in Germany on one of his tours there. He noted that it kept the room it was in very comfortably heated while consuming very little firewood.
Competition
I was thinking more of a University competition, like have been so popular world-wide for petrol-efficient gasoline engines. Efficiency of wood use would benefit so many more individuals. Why not a competition to keep a standard box in the same location hottest for the longest with the same wood stock?
What would a real carbon emissions treaty include?
posted by starman on 2/1/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
The evidence is that the last 150 years of fossil fuel burning have reversed the 15 million years of natural decline in atmospheric CO2 that preceded it. Our planet has seen the present higher levels of atmospheric CO2 before, but humankind has not. The phenomenon of rapid atmospheric change on a planet of 6.8 billion humans may have uncontrollable consequences including famine, flooding, biodiversity loss, and other effects we are totally unprepared to handle. The evidence suggests natural carbon sequestering by atmosphere and oceans can remove about one quarter our current rate of CO2 emissions. The exact rate of emissions that can be reprocessed by nature is debatable, but it is probably about 6 or 7 Gigatons annually. Whatever the actual number, we need to pay some attention to it. On what basis then should nations proceed to limit their carbon emissions? Certainly not, as has been proposed, on past behavior, for past excesses in no way justify future ones. Emission quotas must be based on human needs, as well as planetary limits. Energy is what makes things happen in the world. We need to recognize three components or purposes in our use of energy: Sustenance: energy is required for basic survival, including production of food, clothing and shelter. Comfort: energy may be needed to provide a comfortable living temperature. Productivity: energy for agricultural production, manufacturing, transportation. A successful climate treaty will be one that allocates the amount of fossil fuel use by country based on sustenance, comfort and productivity requirements. The first two requirements are per capita (with allowance for extreme climates), the third is based on productivity as measured by gross domestic product, for example. The total allocations for all nations shall not exceed the limit CO2 emissions the planet can reprocess. All peoples and nations have relatively equitable access to sustainable energy, which is CO2-free. We need only apportion by nation the energy derived from fossil fuels.
Making a Comeback
Here's something for the corporates to realize we all really don't need them that badly, and they really don't have that much extra power to throw around. Of course they are loved, but not when their schemes involve abuses of what they perceive as a divine advantage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16hoLJp-S5k&NR=1
The unravelling
posted by BargHumer on 1/28/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
It seems clear that a large minority of people are not convinced by AGW, yet the UK Prime Minister used the term "Flat Earthers" for climate "Deniers". The "settled" science starts to fall apart and IPCC members refuse to resign whilst other long term committed members change their views because of deep ocean temperatures and cyclic current patterns. As the IPCC unravels, with it's hockey stick supported even by a random number generator, and backed up emails accidentally delete themselves, then the side doors of "Copenhagen" may see more traffic as the once valiant slip quietly away to find the courage to stop the bandwagon and it's crippling misappropriation of funds for a cause that would already be too late even if it was legitimate. Energy management - YES. Chicken Licken - NO.
Chicken Little
posted by LtDan on 1/29/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Chicken Lickin' is a snack food. Chicken Little was the hen who went off to tell the King that the sky was falling, accompanied by Turkey Lurkey, Foxey Loxey, Turtle Myrtle, Horsey Dorsey, Pigsey Wigsey and assorted other animals wanimals. If we Skeptics are to be taken seriously, we must --- MUST --- get our literary allusions correct.
The sky is falling down
posted by BargHumer on 1/30/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Thanks for the comment. You made me look for the book I used to read to my children and when I found it the title shows Chicken Licken (Ladybird books), so I checked online and wikipedia also seem to favour Chicken Licken. I think Chicken Little was an older version but even that was predated by other animals such as a hare. Anyway, your point is still correct. We should try to be accurate especially when confronted with deliberate distortions.
Nature and Order
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 1/29/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
We should all realize that Nature and Order each have their advantages and disadvantages and are, actually, more or less equal in that sense. What we know of the good or the evil of one more than the other is ignorance on our part. All of humanity seeks justice, provision, security.
zNatue and Order
I especially seek provision! Provide me with what I need, and I will get justice and security on my own.
Free Lunch
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 1/30/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Do you have some provider who takes nothing in return? Companies take their tolls. Nature takes her labors. Governments take their subjugations. Gangs take their fears and oppressions. Politicians take their favors. But generally, order and money takes away liberty and strength of family but provides comforts while honor in nature restores liberty and strength of family, but takes away easy comforts. The right exchange of provisions is justice and secure provisions is security, but to be deceitful or to conceal knowledge in dealings is unjust and produces insecurity. And most people also feel that to exchange threat of evil, like force, to secure provisions is unjust.
Shoot and Move
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 1/26/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
The biggest threat from corporations as 'people' in a fiat regime is that people in corporations can use high leverage and bankruptcy to their advantage whereas individuals cannot. Second, corporate bodies with such unjust advantage also command purchase price for goods in volumes with which individuals cannot compete. So the idea that large corporations should be treated the same in a fiat regime as individuals is threatening to good and just individual property ownership and productive capacity.
view all 4 replies respond to this comment
Shoot, Move and Communicate
posted by LtDan on 1/28/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
Mark, those are the three vital functions of field artillery, my old branch of service. I thought you might have forgotten the third. * * * Why do you you think threats from big corporations can be alleviated to some extent by having a currency regime based upon some commodity such as corn or gold? I don't think the currency regime in effect at any particular time has anything whatsoever to do with the power and propensity of large business establishments to impose their wills on society. From a legal point of view, controlling individuals and partnerships by means of State and Federal laws is somewhat more difficult than controlling corporations by such laws since individuals and partnerships are real persons and are not creations of State or Federal law. A corporation is NOT a person for all purposes of the law, and the applicability of our State and Federal Constitutional protections to corporations remains an open question for debate, regardless of the recent opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts concerning the power of corporations to engage in politics.
Communicate
posted by MarkLeavenworth on 1/28/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
The system of fiat currency enforces a number of ‘economic’ principles to which most people who ‘know’ subscribe as being in the best interest of ‘society’. They are wrong more than they are right.----One of these principles is the carrying of large debts, the assumption being that it is the same to have today what you can earn over time. The reason this is false is that most debt is carried for garbage, and for ‘goods’ that cannot possible pay their way in any currency other than the fiat issue, with prices for those goods that adjust to meet the general levels of debt. So it is not debts for the sake of goods, but debts for the sake of debts.----Another principle is based on the theory that interest rates govern which financial instrument is used to leverage both the most productive investor as well as the next most productive use of capital. Each of these theories is false when taken separately and doubly false when taken together. Mainly because the fiat regime price distortions are brought about by it’s own instruments, but also because interest rates depend on time, and the first to make productive use of resources does not by any means predicate that the resources are, therefore, used to the best advantage. To all of this you could say that if a foolish person becomes a slave to the wise, then it is their own fault, and most high-level bankers would agree. I do not agree. I believe that if the market makers had to answer from time to time to replace a bag of corn taken from a man and again restored at some later date, they could not manage it because they are, basically, not only consumers, but also thieves...not patriots, but trans-national marauders. If they actually were answerable for themselves as a person is, and not hiding in groups and behind ever changeable corporations, they would be run out of town.
Corporations
Or, put another way, we must take notice of a threat when charters subject to the constitution have planners behind the officers who are subject to neither.
Corn
But the idea behind corn as currency is a slightly different time-frame, depending on the scale of the fossil fuel situation. For at some point, I think we can agree, there will be a transition from fossil fuel to sun fuels. The corn system is meant to present early on, an alternative for government, that the United States can survive the transition. If the system is not launched in time, the United States will not survive. If the system is launched early, it will be of little consequence until needed, which will follow at a much later date, but the United States will enter a smooth transition from fossil fuel to sun fuel.
Carbon Management
posted by sdhagerman on 1/26/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
65 million years ago, there was another species ruling this planet. They breathed, they pooped, they impacted the environment just like we do today. Was it Global Warming that wiped out the Dinosaurs? In order to predict/project a future you need a past to base it on. We have no record of man's previous impact on Global Climate. We DO have historical records of past Climate Changes, none of which where man made. This Global Warming issue makes no sense and does not constitute an impending threat to humanity. As a Nation, we need to think about the real threats to humanity that we face in the foreseeable future. What has happened that impacted humanity over the past 5 years? Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami in Indonesia and the Earthquake in Haiti. Do you really think that Global Warming is as pressing an issue as being prepared for this? What about terrorist attacks in the past 10 years? Do we really want to give $100 Billion a year to these countries that breed terrorists? Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to wake-up. More importantly we need our government to wake-up.
view 1 reply respond to this comment
sk
posted by mr.so.and.so on 1/27/2010 - Be the first to recommend this
so the already proven fact that the ozone is deteriorating is just because of "changes?" Oh no it'll just repair itself. [snip*] *Please no inflammatory comments or expletives per the Community Guidelines
You all do know
[Snip*]We as citizens as normal American/world citizens have done quite a lot to stop global warming, so instead of doing things in their own ways, the big corporations especially the gas companies just pump out more clever advertisements targeting the, "future leaders of the world." But have they not realized we can do more, yes but they have done nothing at all. In 2009 China has felt its impact, and has backed off to #2, but the US had stood standing, although we talk we cannot act. Let us not automatically ignore the outcomes they have come up with. Copenhagen sucked [snip*], all because nobody could make an accepted agreement, Obama in my opinion made a dumb choice by denying to lower our carbon footprint. Although it costs a lot of money, isn't life worth all of it? *Please no inflammatory comments or expletives per the Community Guidelines
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi-environment-co2-emissions