Bush to Switch Tacks on Global Warming?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]vroom wrote:
Loth,

While I agree it is good to look at the big picture and not panic due to rising CO2 levels, I also feel that you make unfounded claims yourself.

The degree of “safety” we have is certainly unknown right now. We also don’t know that the CO2 will actually be gobbled up as suggested.

Please, if you are going to accuse the entire scientific community of talking out of it’s collective ass, don’t start talking out of yours to counter it.[/quote]

I’m not accusing the entire scientific community of talking out its ass, as I am relying on them to provide lovely graphs and analysis and whatnot to support ideas.

More bulletpoints:

#1 Greenhouse gases are responsible for the planet earth not being a gigantic iceball floating around in space.

Conclusion: we NEED our greenhouse gases to survive.

#2 Plant biomass plays a key role in regulating CO2. Right now, the plants are still in the process of adapting to big levels of CO2, but as this link can explain (kind of technical, but not too bad), those increases in CO2 not only give rise to more plants, it increases the growth of more plants, leasding to exponential growth.

http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/125/1/25

Conclusion: In other words, the carbon sink in the plants will try to keep up with what is present to work with. More CO2 means more plants and faster growing plants.

#3 We are going to run out of oil to burn. This is not even in dispute in the scientific community, as it is common sense. What is disputed is WHEN it will happen. Our best and most conservative guesses lead to an average of around fifteen years to fifty years before we hit the global halfway point of the world’s oil supply, or the so-called “peak oil”.

Conclusion: Unless something changes, The Keeling curve will “flatten out” and then drop precipitously as the oil dries up towards the end of the bell curve of oil production. This is because the major source of atmospheric CO2 will have all but vanished (human burning of fossil fuels) and the sinks which have grown up in response to the presence of large CO2 levels will still be around. And they do not know restraint. You can’t reason with trees, they will breathe until you make them into furniture.

SUMMING UP:
Bulletpoints: We need CO2 to be in the atmosphere. Trees and other plants make CO2 go away. Pretty soon we just might have too many plants for the amount of CO2 we put in the air.

Conclusions: Selectively kill lots of trees, taper off oil before it just runs out on us and the Keeling curve looks like the stock market crash of 1929.

22

[quote]vroom wrote:
Loth,

While I agree it is good to look at the big picture and not panic due to rising CO2 levels, I also feel that you make unfounded claims yourself.

The degree of “safety” we have is certainly unknown right now. We also don’t know that the CO2 will actually be gobbled up as suggested.

Please, if you are going to accuse the entire scientific community of talking out of it’s collective ass, don’t start talking out of yours to counter it.[/quote]

hillarious

23

With the help of ecology movements, the reluctance of power station owners to build costly bridges or complex networks of passageways for the salmon is gradually breaking down. Such facilities are already under construction at Iffezheim, at the confluence with the river Ill (which has no dams on it), at a cost of about $6 million, and at Gambsheim, in Alsace. Basel residents are being consulted about planned changes in the landscape that would help the salmon migrate. Egon Oberacker, a professional fisherman in the Swiss town of Nordbaden, is pleased that fish will be more plentiful now. But, he says, ?we still can?t live off fishing alone, as we once did.?
The idea of an integrated ecosystem that will enable a rich variety of animal and plant life to thrive in the Rhine and its branches once more has come a long way. In 1998, the ministers of the Commission set targets to restore natural areas as part of a global ecosystem stretching from the mouth of the Rhine to the Jura, the Alps, the Rhine mountain range, the old softwood forests of the floodplains, and streams of the Rhineland-Palatinate, the Black Forest and the Vosges.

http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_06/uk/planet.htm

Needs/Objectives:

Identify high nature value farmland and assess the distribution and conservation status of high nature value (HNV) farmland at the Pan-European level.
Promote adequate management of high nature value (HNV) farmland in order to maintain a high degree of biodiversity in the Pan-European region.
Decrease the current trend of agricultural intensification and crop and livestock homogenisation, and land abandonment in the Pan-European region.
Integrate biodiversity considerations in financial subsidy and incentive schemes in the Pan-European region.
Build capacity through the dissemination of targeted information on biodiversity-sensitive management of high nature value farmland.
Raise awareness of the importance of local and traditional markets as well as promote the maintenance or development of local markets for the conservation of agricultural biodiversity.

http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:AxkLEknimQUJ:www.strategyguide.org/docs/council/2004/STRA-CO(2004)3b_E.doc+farmland+to+nature+europe&hl=nl&gl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=8

…a more sustainable way of farming: http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/columns/07.19.02Hamilton.html

24

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
…

#3 There are a shitload more total plant life in the oceans and elsewhere due to the big-ass levels of CO2 which plankton and friends will greedily gobble up. If anything is out of control, it is the algae blooms and shit which are choking up shorelines and rivers and whatnot.

…[/quote]

These algea blooms are mostly due to the “nutrients” being flushed down our toilets that make their way into our rivers.

I am working hard to reduce these levels so you guys don’t need to worry too much.

Interestingly the evil Republicans have actually voted to increase funding to upgrade treatment plants to reduce the levels of these “nutrients” in our waterways.