Re: Warming - Cooling - Climate will change


"Jo Schaper" <jo345sch765aper@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:N96dnXsJ0t-1y9HVnZ2dnUVZ_tajnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jo Schaper wrote:
jonathan wrote:
>
And then, in the early eighties, the rate of increase of C02 /doubled/ from
about 1% a year, to 2% more Co2 each year. And today Co2 levels
are about .....FORTY PERCENT HIGHER... then in 1980.

You need to learn to do fractions, jonathan.


And I should be clearer about the numbers. My memory
is not always so great. I seem to have mixed up increases
in emissions, which are up 40%, and increased concentrations
which are up 15%. But you're forgetting this fact.....

According to the huge IPCC international study

":During the past 50 years, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings
would likely have produced cooling."

Human activities have turned a cooling period into a warming one


According to the IPCC, the total increase since 1970, not 80, of
GHG emissions increased 39%.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf



1980 = 335 ppm. 2007 = 385
ppm. Difference = 50 ppm. 50/385 = .129 or a 12.9% increase. Even if you were
to take a catastrophist's approach, and put the 50 ppm increase over 335, that
is .149 or about a 15% increase.


Anyone that believes a forty percent increase in greenhouse gasses in just
a couple of decades would NOT warm the planet is in ...denial... big time.
Not to mention each year that figure jumps another couple percent.
In twenty five years that'll be another 40% increase. Assuming of
course countries like China and India don't turn to coal, which
emits twice as much C02.



We can argue the numbers all you want, but the latest, largest and
most comprehensive study shows the trend is clear.
The question should be "what are we going to do about it?"


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is
now evident from observations of increases in global
average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting
of snow and ice and rising global average sea level
Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among
the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of global
surface temperature (since 1850)."
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch/press/index.htm




On what basis? You are mere screaming "the sky is falling".


What I'm screaming about is the trends.

Fossil fuels have been cheap and easy, but over time, they
increasingly harming the biosphere, they are becoming
ever shorter in supply and much more expensive. The trend
is clearly towards a bleak future if we continue to deny
the problem with relying on fossil fuels.

But if we were to collectively decide to find a new and
clean energy source, such as Space Solar Power or
some equivelent, we can establish a different trend.

Where at first, solar power is expensive and difficult.
But over time, as technology improves, as cost to orbit
declines etc. Space Solar Power will steadily become
....more abundant....less expensive and more widely used.

CAN ANYONE see the fundamental difference in those trends?

We cannot embark on such a long term grand solution unless
we accept there is a problem.





No, but I do deny he is a scientist.


Does the word 'activist' mean anything? In politics, some dramatic license
is considered fair play. It's up to the other side to balance the emotional
appeal.

I don't find Mr. Gore's hysteria equivalent to activism. What is *he* doing to
either cut his consumption, or raise money for neutral (not biased) studies to
come up with some useful mitigation? I'm sure he's sincere. But I'm not sure
who is listening to him.


Since Katrina, since Gore, public opinion on global warming has
shifted enormously. The debate has shifted from is there a problem
to what to do about it. The debate has been won on global
warming, but not about the long term solution.





If he were really sincere about his efforts, he would
go back to the US Senate, and get some legislation passed.


He's not an elected official anymore. And I believe he's using
rather clever ways of getting out a message in an effective way.


Or put in his bid
to be in the next Cabinet in an environmental capacity. If he's a politician,
he needs to go play in that sandbox, not Hollyweird.


Activists gravitate to the public spotlight.



Jimmy Carter is more of an scientist than he is (if we wanna pick on
politicians)and look where it got him. Many people forget that Herbert
Hoover
was some sort of an engineer, and obviously the wrong man in the wrong place
at the wrong time.


And our current President was an oil man. By the end of this year
we'll have oil at $200 a barrel. It was as low as $8 under Clinton.

I seriously doubt your figure of $8/barrel oil. City your source. Here's mine:
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/simmons1.htm This indicates that the oil low
was $13/bbl under GHW BUSH in 1986.


At the end of 1998 it dipped briefly below $10 a barrel.
Like I said, in activism some dramatic license is fair play~
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/hist_CO.html

But look at this chart, any trader will recognize that pattern
in a hearbeat. It's called a bubble, as classic as they come.
Such an economic bubble is in fact evidence that......

"THE SKY IS FALLING"

Soon, shortly after it peaks at $175 to $2OO ...this year...
the sky (economy) will come crashing down with it.
We'll be in a huge recession, just like the bubble bursting
in the housing market, or the great Nasdaq bubble etc.

But, of course, any bubble is also an opportunity....at least
for those that ...can...recognize trends. The airline stocks
for instance will soon become bargains, and as the price
of oil collapses in the next couple of years, the airline stocks
will ....zoom...zoom....zoom!




other hand, the GW crazies who claim people are most of the problem, and the
sun, sunspots, volcanoes, Milankovitch cycles and weather patterns are
incidental -- well, I don't buy that, either.


So, you don't think human activity has the potential to overwhelm
natural forces?

No. Affect, yes. overwhelm? Not a chance.


Really, what has happened to the planets biodiversity in the
last century or two? The rate of extinction is orders of magnitude
greater than natural. That's not overwhelming?


If we get close, we're gonna get
bitten.

Has happened to every species so far, so why should we be any
different?

Because intelligence is a far more powerful adaptation than
any that has come before, and by leaps and bounds.
We have the ability to control our environment, not just
react to it.



Humans have transformed the face of the planet
in terms of the diversity of life, geology and the biosphere at rates
of change that far outstrip natural evolution.

Humans have not yet caused extinction of 90% of all life on earth (Nature has,
several times.)


Yes Nature has 'bubbled' several times. And we are about to
witness first hand a man made bubble concerning the primary
resource that currently sustains us.

And yet you argue for patience, and proof and let nature take
it course. While I'll rail at the sky that time is running out.

Why do you refuse to err on the side of caution....on the side
of humanity?


Explain to me how we've affected geological processes.


Have you flown in an airplane recently? It's hard to find a place
on the surface that has not been dramatically altered by human
activity.

Scientific American article from a couple of months ago.

March 25, 2008
China's Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe?

"Surveys show that the Three Gorges region may be next.
Chinese Academy of Engineering scholar Li Wangping
reports on the CTGPC's Web site that the area registered
822 tremors in the seven months after the September 2006
reservoir-level increase. So far, none have been severe
enough to cause serious damage. But by 2009, the dam's
water level is set to be raised to its full 575-foot capacity
and then lowered about 100 feet (30 meters) during flood
season. That increase in water pressure, in water fluctuation
and in land covered by the reservoir, Fan says, makes
for a "very large possibility" that the situation will worsen"
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=chinas-three-gorges-dam-disaster


Reservoir-induced Seismicity in China (pdf)
LINYUE CHEN1 and PRADEEP TALWANI1

Abstract-A review of case histories of reservoir-induced seismicity (RIS)
in China shows that it mainly occurs in granitic and karst terranes.
Seismicity in granitic terranes is mainly associated with pore
pressure diffusion whereas in karst terranes the chemical effect of water
appears to play a major role in triggering RIS. In view of the characteristic
features of RIS in China, we can expect moderate earthquakes to be induced
by the construction of the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River.
http://scsn.seis.sc.edu/Publications/pageoph98/pageoph98.pdf




We can
mimic certain processes (trigger earthquakes, make diamonds and concrete,
etc., but we've not yet come up with any new geologic process that I know of.
Ditto weather.
We can temporarily restrain some processes (like floods) but
without vigilance, nature takes over once again.


And someday evolved intelligence will be able to create and destoy
entire planets. Hell, we're not that far away from being able
to prevent those rare impacts that have so terriblyculled life in the
past. Intelligence is the greater force. At least in the short term
view, I would agree thought that in geologic time nature wins.

But the thing is, life is more important than anything else.


We're actually pretty puny monkeys using bananas as hammers, Jonathan.

It doesn't have to be that way.

If we truly....rigorously..scientifically use our imagination to
design the ideal future. We can then pretty easily see the
path from here to there that we should follow.

If, and only if, our scientific activities begin by creating
an idealized future, how can we know what to do next?

How can we know what our purpose should be?
How can we bring meaning into our lives?

Unless we work and design the future we desire?
Instead of merely reacting to the present reality?

Our intelligence can lead to an entirely different
future for the planet. As different as night is from
day. From misery to beauty.

We must simply insist all our human 'systems' mimic
nature. As that which created us defines the ultimate
or ideal process.

A future defined by the ideal process defines...Utopia.

Understanding nature, and becoming part of the 'process'
is the path to a personal Utopia....now.

Imagining Utopia in the future is the path to contentment
....today.

We must not be afraid to let our imagination loose.
And see where it takes us.


Oh ya, and about Al Gore.....


"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. were awarded of the Nobel
Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate
greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and
to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed
to counteract such change".


As activism goes, that's kinda like winning the Super Bowl~

s



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