Warming of the Planet

[booker]

Pete-

Now the Yoopers are trying to buy air conditioners (safe to say they never saw that coming in the 70s)!

[x SF med]

Originally Posted by Pete

The 24 hour news cycle and public education has got people living as if they will die by sunrise.

Oh, Hell - you mean the sky isn't falling?

[Alchemist]

A colleague of mine has, I regret to say, a pretty good line on greenhouse skepticism: "For those of you who don't think carbon dioxide buildup contributes to global warming? Don't worry...we're doing the experiment."

Several commenters here have made the valid point that there are other greenhouse gases, some of them natural, and that a cause-and-effect connection between these and the warming that is generally acknowledged is not as airtight as the alarmists maintain. Speaking of the alarmists, I wish I could remember who answered, "What else could it possibly be?" with the perfect response: "It could be anything else in the world that you don't understand."

On a personal note, I would derive no small amusement from seeing the smug certitude of the more bullying alarmists punctured.

But I just have to point this out: CO2 was 280 parts per million around the time the Industrial Revolution started. It's 380 ppm and climbing. You can't account for that rise or anything close to it with natural causes alone. And unlike cow farts, this particular greenhouse gas is poised to really take off. If China and India come up to our standard of living while burning mostly coal to generate energy, it's going to go to 800, conservatively.

That's still a small fraction but it's a big change. I'm no climatologist, just an interested reader, but the conservative in me allies with the chemist to look at that prospect and say, "That can't be a good idea."

So what do we do? Hamstring our economy to cut our emissions, while the Europeans keep quietly failing to cut theirs much, and China and India don't try at all? I know people who would say yes, if only for the sake of the gesture. Count me opposed.

Still, I wonder whether President Bush, if he were feeling really ambitious, could round up enough support among enviros on the left (note that the cofounder of Greenpeace now supports a big increase in nuclear energy generation) and national security voters on the right, for a Manhattan-Project-level effort to move beyond fossil fuels, sooner rather than later. (He's made noises about this, but our steps are pretty minor at this point.) It won't solve our problems in the Middle East anytime soon, and I'm sure it would carry its own unintended consequences, but I could just about be persuaded.

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by Alchemist

Still, I wonder whether President Bush, if he were feeling really ambitious, could round up enough support among enviros on the left (note that the cofounder of Greenpeace now supports a big increase in nuclear energy generation) and national security voters on the right, for a Manhattan-Project-level effort to move beyond fossil fuels, sooner rather than later. (He's made noises about this, but our steps are pretty minor at this point.) It won't solve our problems in the Middle East anytime soon, and I'm sure it would carry its own unintended consequences, but I could just about be persuaded.

If POTUS wants a genuine legacy he should push the development of commercially viable electric power plants driven by hydrogen fusion. IMNSHO hydrogen fusion has the potential (socially and economically) to be the equivalent of going from horse & buggy to the internal combustion engine. From theory to bomb took 5-6 years, from political statement to Moon took 7-8 years; how long would commercial fusion power take? A lot of the underlying science has already been done. Energy independance is a goal worthy of Manhattan Project resource commitment. Heck - clean up a few "porkbarrel projects/setasides" and the Federal Government wouldn't even notice the pricetag. Anything less lacks vision or more properly belongs in the private sector. My .02 - Peregrino

[The Reaper]

Agree completely with the independent energy Manhattan Project, and have suggested this repeatedly before.

TR

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Firebeef

Sdiver.....I saw that. Don't you dare!!
You know you would miss Greality
what other town in Colorado could u dis if we weren't here?????

**cough**BOULDER**cough**

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Monsoon65

I was born at KI Sawyer in May 1965.

I was born at St Ignace because the base couldn't do the delivery (name the base for extra points). Dragged of to Maine (another base) for a few years and ended up at KI Sawyer in the fall of 60. Stayed there until Feb 73. Ah, the joys of being a SAC brat in the 50s & 60s.

After a shot stay in Iowa I joined the Army. Going from N/E Iowa the end of Feb to Ft Jackson, SC the first week of Mar I was a believer in Global Warming. Man that place was hot, and here everybody else was running around in field jackets saying they were cold. Cold? They didn't know what cold was.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Alchemist

...On a personal note, I would derive no small amusement from seeing the smug certitude of the more bullying alarmists punctured.

All kidding aside, I think many here agree with the greater points of energy sources and conservation. It's just that over the years, other that shouting down everybody, the enviro-wackos have been against everything.

Nuke power? Got that shut down, tied up with permits and enviro impact statements. Hydro power? Same thing, try and build a large dam and kooks will come out from every rock. Result - more coal based plants.

Wind power? Ask the Martha's Vinyards people about what NIMBY stands for.

Oil? Let's kill of "Big Oil" with taxes. All While China and Cuba start pumping oil from the Florida straights. Another NIMBY for FL and the Carolinas.

I'll be the first in line for an energy/earth friendly car that can do 200 miles a day at highway speeds, that lasts about 150,000 miles and is equal in cost to the cars I drive now, $12,000-$15,000. Yes guys, my work car is an el-cheepo. It's a tool not a lifestyle. Besides, I'm not a LE target.

And on electric cars, if you plug it in it's a carbon user/burner. Some evil coal burning plant had to burn coal to make the electricity.

Pete

Earth Lover from way back

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

As a wayward youth I attended the University of Maine and graduated in the 60s with a BS and then got a MS in the 70s-both in Wildlife Management. As you might imagine both courses were steeped in the eco-sciences of the day and academia relied heavily then, as it does today, on grants to pursue agendas and prove theories using that tried and true military planning process of reverse planning. Reverse planning (unless you are in a leg unit-then it is backasswards planning) means you start at the objective and work back to the inception of the mission working out all the steps you need to do to accomplish the task assigned. Many of the academics of the day did just that, they had a mission and worked backwards to figure out what they had to do to make it come out they way that they wanted-facts be damned. I know you find it difficult to attack the hallowed halls of ivy covered towers of higher tuitions(excuse me-learning) but I only have to mention just a few sacrosanct studies of the time: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring-thanks to her malaria is killing millions. A polution project in the UK that showed moths mutating in the urban environments because of the coal burning plants-the "scientists" involved were actually collecting moths of the color they wanted and gluing them to the sides of buildings to prove their findings (excuse me again-agenda). Now let me be so bold as to mention environmental succession-did you ever wonder why some species of plants and animals exist in one area of the same region of the world and not in others. It is simple, the first critters and plants that arrive actually modify the environment to suit their needs which in turn changes the environment which makes it more suitable for another species to replace them. It is a natural course of events. Now I do not want to be fatalistic here, but everytime man has screwed with the process he has created more problems-ask any deer biologist about the Kaibab deer crash. Now I am not saying that all the kindly old professors in slightly soiled lab coats with their well worn pocket protectors are mad scientists, however manipulating data in the short term is easy but not valid when you are talking long term cycles driven by a mulitude of factors most of which are outside of mans control. Sometimes a hot spell is just a hot spell.

[smp52]

Accidentally edited by Razor. Checking on a fix, if it exists.

New edit by Razor: No dice. PM out.

[spectre919]

Originally Posted by smp52

I pretty much agree with the above sentiment. The only valid data is that

a) We are warming up.

Yep, It's gonna be a sweltering 19F here in FLORIDA tonight!!!

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Peregrino

If POTUS wants a genuine legacy he should push the development of commercially viable electric power plants driven by hydrogen fusion.

Something available RIGHT NOW is biomass electric plants. They take in construction and demolition wood (or other efficiently burnable organic material) that would otherwise clog landfills or be burned in open fires (let's see, any massive supply of C&D available out there right now...oh yeah, how about the Katrina mess) and sort and burn it to produce steam to produce electricity; some small plants with a single turbine are producing upwards of 40MW. The biomass aerial environmental output is lower than that for fossils fuels, and the ash waste is converted into plant fertilizer. Even the waste heat (which every system has, but which biomass has less) can be recycled for plant operation, or piped off to other heat users, of which there are many (can anyone say steam-heated facilities, or agriculture needs?).

It may not be the "Mr. Right" solution, but it seems like a viable "Mr. Right Now".

(For the record, I still don't believe vastly expanding our pollution reduction efforts to reduce our environmental impact will amount to a hill of beans when compared globally.)

[smp52]

Originally Posted by spectre919

Yep, It's gonna be a sweltering 19F here in FLORIDA tonight!!!

I know. I've been in the Orlando area for the last 3 weeks

But we're looking at the effects globally. Locally I guess things may turn a bit weird.

The biomass aerial environmental output is lower than that for fossils fuels, and the ash waste is converted into plant fertilizer. Even the waste heat (which every system has, but which biomass has less) can be recycled for plant operation, or piped off to other heat users, of which there are many (can anyone say steam-heated facilities, or agriculture needs?).

I recently saw a television program where an old landfill had pipes running in the ground to extract the methane produced from decomposition. I always saw commericals on India's state owned TV network about biogas plants in little rural villages, where dung and other organic waste is pumped into a concrete chamber and methane is extracted from the decomposition. Leftover material can be used as fertiziler, too.

I don't think there is one solution to the energy needs. The southwest, for example, would be an ideal candidate for solar energy use. I grew up with a solar water heater. It did a decent job. Only on rainy and really cold days did we have to flip the switch to turn the back up electric heating filament on.

I'd like to see big tax breaks for places with large square footage roofs (commerical buildings) and homeowners that install 'green roofs' or solar panels. On those really hot and sunny days when everyone's ACs are running, having a solar energy supplement to ensure no rollling black outs occur (or reduce its effect) would be nice.

[Monsoon65]

Originally Posted by Razor

(For the record, I still don't believe vastly expanding our pollution reduction efforts to reduce our environmental impact will amount to a hill of beans when compared globally.)

Exactly. I try to be as "green" as I can without getting too weird. I'll recycle, conserve, all that good stuff, but compared to the rest of the world, it's a drop in the bucket that's saved.



Pete: SAC kid? Hmmmm, how about Kincheloe AFB. My dad was Rescue; we got assigened everywhere! He told me about flying over Superior and it was like flying over the ocean due to it's size. The also did water work in a depression between the runways where water collected and always had to wear an exposure suit because the water was that cold. He retired to Upstate NY in the Snow Belt, north of Albany. People in PA here freak with an inch or so of snow, and up there they were getting a foot.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by smp52

....I'd like to see big tax breaks for places with large square footage roofs (commerical buildings) and homeowners that install 'green roofs' or solar panels......

And thats the problem. The "save the world people" don't want to do it on their own dime. They want to do it on mine.

Libs love to talk the talk but not make the walk. The Jet Set of the left coast just loves the big cars and SUVs, private jets and huge homes but want us to do the "do without" bit. Same thing about guns. Good ol' Rosie says nobody should have guns, except of course her bodyguards.

Special rules for Special People.

Pete