Thinking About Climate Change

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
CO2 displacing oxygen in the atmosphere isn’t going to happen.[/quote]

How do you know that? You do realize that the Earth still has about 5 billion years in front of it. Do you know, for a fact, if we keep increasing Carbon Dioxide emissions as we are now, how the atmosphere will be in even a fraction of that, like a billion years?

Anyway, I digress – vroom is right, that is completely tangent to the conversation… However, it served its purpose, which was to show how short sighted you are being…

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
As to the “delicate balance” of nature, there is no such thing.

Nature and are climate are in a transient state. It is always changing, there has never been a “balance”.[/quote]

That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever read in these forums. And I’ve read a lot of very absurd things, mind you. If you don’t realize that balance exists and all the life on Earth exists because of that balance, you’re out of your mind.

At the very least, you clearly skipped class on Biology 101.

It particularly surprises me reading such a thing from someone that actually reads T-Nation articles, and has read about such things as homeostatic balance. I could bother to explain it to you like you were a 5-year old, but honestly I’d rather do that with an actual 5-year old.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
It hasn’t always been that way. Things change.[/quote]

Sure. We grow. We work out. We get bigger muscles. We get less fat. But our bodies must ALWAYS keep their homeostatic balance. Being alive means keeping that balance. Do you know what happens when that balance is irreparably compromised? We die.

82

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
No. The question is very real. Do your homework and you will see.[/quote]

By do your homework I think you mean dig up something to support a particular position. But I try not to do that.

Huge arguments rage over consequences. If you read my formulation carefully, you see that I do not suggest there is necessarily anything to be done. I merely feel it is now more productive to redirect the discussion.

And it is true there will be positive as well as negative effects, both from carbon balance and warming. But it is definitely anything can happen day from here on out unless we ameliorate our impact on the atmosphere. No use looking back at how the planet used to work. The effects of releasing CFCs into the atmosphere were a particularly nasty surprise. Increasingly, we will see unexpected phenomena relating to our casual use of the atmosphere as a dumping ground.

I helped build one of the first computerized models of photochemical air pollution for the LA basin, in 1967. From this I got a real respect for what can happen when you dork with atmospheric chemistry, even seemingly teensy amounts.

The relative proportion of the different molecules, by the way, is not particularly germaine to what may happen as a result of moving away from the current balance by even a small amount. It’s very touching to observe your efforts to model our atmosphere, especially the line about gas layering.

83

That’s pretty cool, endgamer. I just read up about the historical rise and fall of smog in the LA Basin since they started monitoring it. I had no idea how much the smog has actually gone away in that area. Amazing.

Thing I’m wondering though: can we extrapolate what we’ve learned from LA to the rest of the world? That’s kinda a big jump if you ask me. You caution us about fiddling with CO2 levels and whatnot, and I believe you, but are we really that sure about how human emissions come into play with regards to the entire world?

I see the emissions from one volcano, and that pretty much dwarfs what we little humans do with all of our machines… do we really need to be so anal in a global sense about what we do to our atmosphere a la some Kyoto Accord?

To sum up: I see the affects of pollution in a local sense is very dependent on human activity as we see quite plainly in the LA Basin, but does this apply in a global sense to the extent of “the sky is falling” scientists who claim that we are soon to meet our greenhouse gas-laden doom unless we go back to cave-man status?

84

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
That’s pretty cool, endgamer. I just read up about the historical rise and fall of smog in the LA Basin since they started monitoring it. I had no idea how much the smog has actually gone away in that area. Amazing.

…

To sum up: I see the affects of pollution in a local sense is very dependent on human activity as we see quite plainly in the LA Basin, but does this apply in a global sense to the extent of “the sky is falling” scientists who claim that we are soon to meet our greenhouse gas-laden doom unless we go back to cave-man status?[/quote]

I think the way we should look at it is that it’s increasingly dependent on human activity. Not so much as in LA quite yet. What applies from there to the greenhouse gas problem is the general principal that simple reasoning about relative quantities of atmospheric gases gets you in trouble. Small changes in partial pressures of constituent gases can have large effects.

The chemistry with actual pollutants is another whole problem apart from greenhouse gases, that will not go away, and yes, the LA Basin is a harbinger of what can happen over much wider areas when unburnt hydrocarbons get released. LA fixed its problem sort of, in part by putting vacuum cleaners on the gas pumps, I think they will work more on the lawn mowers again next. But you should see what goes on in China and Mexico, to name just two places. The air pollution over China can be seen from orbit, I understand.

I think actually few scientists state they know what is going to happen. The people who make the models make projections. Doom? There are a lot of rather likely negative effects in view from the warming already experienced.

Sounds to me like it’s the cave-man thing that’s got your goat. In the long run, what will facing the problem mean to our way of life? There are plenty of ways to make the necessary energy that don’t involve burning stuff. We could make an effort to stop deforesting the planet. Electric cars make dandy high performance vehicles. We’d better figure it out, because with 6 billion people on the planet, as eventually we try to make everywhere look like Burbank there is otherwise going to be a huge mess.

If we can keep the problem from accelerating any further at least, it could be a big help.

I hate to say it, but the last time I was in LA it seemed to me they were nearly back again to where they were in 1966, when I first went there. There is so much more (attempted) vehicular use it is starting to add up again. No doubt the chemistry is different this time.

85

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
CO2 displacing oxygen in the atmosphere isn’t going to happen.

How do you know that? You do realize that the Earth still has about 5 billion years in front of it. Do you know, for a fact, if we keep increasing Carbon Dioxide emissions as we are now, how the atmosphere will be in even a fraction of that, like a billion years?

Anyway, I digress – vroom is right, that is completely tangent to the conversation… However, it served its purpose, which was to show how short sighted you are being…

[/quote]

With this statement you clearly illustrate you have no idea what you are talking about.

If you are worried about what will happen to the atmosphere in 1 billion years you are full of shit.

86

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

As to the “delicate balance” of nature, there is no such thing.

Nature and are climate are in a transient state. It is always changing, there has never been a “balance”.

That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever read in these forums. And I’ve read a lot of very absurd things, mind you. If you don’t realize that balance exists and all the life on Earth exists because of that balance, you’re out of your mind.

At the very least, you clearly skipped class on Biology 101.

[/quote]

You are right. Nature is a perfect balance. That is why the dinosaurs are here. Oh that is right, the cavemen killed them off.

The concept of “balance of nature” went out in the 70’s. Perhaps you didn’t get the memo?

87

[quote]endgamer711 wrote:
lothario1132 wrote:
That’s pretty cool, endgamer. I just read up about the historical rise and fall of smog in the LA Basin since they started monitoring it. I had no idea how much the smog has actually gone away in that area. Amazing.

…

To sum up: I see the affects of pollution in a local sense is very dependent on human activity as we see quite plainly in the LA Basin, but does this apply in a global sense to the extent of “the sky is falling” scientists who claim that we are soon to meet our greenhouse gas-laden doom unless we go back to cave-man status?

I think the way we should look at it is that it’s increasingly dependent on human activity. Not so much as in LA quite yet. What applies from there to the greenhouse gas problem is the general principal that simple reasoning about relative quantities of atmospheric gases gets you in trouble. Small changes in partial pressures of constituent gases can have large effects.

The chemistry with actual pollutants is another whole problem apart from greenhouse gases, that will not go away, and yes, the LA Basin is a harbinger of what can happen over much wider areas when unburnt hydrocarbons get released. LA fixed its problem sort of, in part by putting vacuum cleaners on the gas pumps, I think they will work more on the lawn mowers again next. But you should see what goes on in China and Mexico, to name just two places. The air pollution over China can be seen from orbit, I understand.

I think actually few scientists state they know what is going to happen. The people who make the models make projections. Doom? There are a lot of rather likely negative effects in view from the warming already experienced.

Sounds to me like it’s the cave-man thing that’s got your goat. In the long run, what will facing the problem mean to our way of life? There are plenty of ways to make the necessary energy that don’t involve burning stuff. We could make an effort to stop deforesting the planet. Electric cars make dandy high performance vehicles. We’d better figure it out, because with 6 billion people on the planet, as eventually we try to make everywhere look like Burbank there is otherwise going to be a huge mess.

If we can keep the problem from accelerating any further at least, it could be a big help.

I hate to say it, but the last time I was in LA it seemed to me they were nearly back again to where they were in 1966, when I first went there. There is so much more (attempted) vehicular use it is starting to add up again. No doubt the chemistry is different this time.[/quote]

I am with you on these items.

The problems associted with hydrocarbons, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide etc, are quite real and should be addressed much more forcefully.

88

Zap, your ignorance is astounding. You chose your name well didn’t you?

None of us are saying we are SURE exactly what will happen, but there is evidence that it will be very bad. Should this evidence be ignored because we don’t like what it tells us?

Anyway, with global warming, if it were to occur, you can kiss much of the current US agriculture goodbye. Maybe you could just do open pit mining across the nation since the land won’t be productive for much else.

Oops, no, you can’t, because everyone living on the coast will have to move inland if the polar icecaps melt – they’ll be living on that barren land.

Yes, I know, gloom and doom. However, a few degrees here and there has a lot to do with precipitation and rainfall patterns. It doesn’t take much of a change to find out that prime agricultural land is now very substandard.

A few degrees here and there can greatly impact the amount of snowfall on the polar regions. If the ice caps melt… you’ll see the sea rise. Maybe you don’t live on the coast, but a huge amount of US population, as well as world population, does.

Yes, it would take time, it wouldn’t just be a big tidal wave, but the expense of adjusting to such an event is incredibly immense.

As has been stated, this is an issue of dealing with risk (risk generally means uncertainty). We can stick our heads in the sand and ignore this risk, or we can take steps to try to avoid this risk.

89

[quote]vroom wrote:
Zap, your ignorance is astounding. You chose your name well didn’t you?

None of us are saying we are SURE exactly what will happen, but there is evidence that it will be very bad. Should this evidence be ignored because we don’t like what it tells us?

Anyway, with global warming, if it were to occur, you can kiss much of the current US agriculture goodbye. Maybe you could just do open pit mining across the nation since the land won’t be productive for much else.

Oops, no, you can’t, because everyone living on the coast will have to move inland if the polar icecaps melt – they’ll be living on that barren land.

Yes, I know, gloom and doom. However, a few degrees here and there has a lot to do with precipitation and rainfall patterns. It doesn’t take much of a change to find out that prime agricultural land is now very substandard.

A few degrees here and there can greatly impact the amount of snowfall on the polar regions. If the ice caps melt… you’ll see the sea rise. Maybe you don’t live on the coast, but a huge amount of US population, as well as world population, does.

Yes, it would take time, it wouldn’t just be a big tidal wave, but the expense of adjusting to such an event is incredibly immense.

As has been stated, this is an issue of dealing with risk (risk generally means uncertainty). We can stick our heads in the sand and ignore this risk, or we can take steps to try to avoid this risk.[/quote]

vroom, do your homework and perhaps we can have an intelligent discourse on this subject.

It is an interesting subject and perhaps there is some validity to the CO2 induced global warming theory.

Unfortunately all your posts reflect the “doom and gloom” aspect and offer no insight to the science behind the theory or the politics.

I suggest you read “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton. It is fiction, but the science discussions the book is footnoted and factual. You will find it an eye opener and an easy read.

And please save the Jurassic Park jokes. That book is pure fiction and is not represented otherwise.

90

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:

You are right. Nature is a perfect balance. That is why the dinosaurs are here. Oh that is right, the cavemen killed them off.

The concept of “balance of nature” went out in the 70’s. Perhaps you didn’t get the memo?[/quote]

I know you’re being sarcastic, but I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say. Obviously the environment is in a state of perpetual fluctuation, but this in no way implies that we cannot have an (positive or negative) effect on it. Perhaps you could clarify?

91

[quote]Orbitalboner wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

You are right. Nature is a perfect balance. That is why the dinosaurs are here. Oh that is right, the cavemen killed them off.

The concept of “balance of nature” went out in the 70’s. Perhaps you didn’t get the memo?

I know you’re being sarcastic, but I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say. Obviously the environment is in a state of perpetual fluctuation, but this in no way implies that we cannot have a (positive or negative) effect on it. Perhaps you could clarify?[/quote]

I agree we have an effect on nature and unfortunately it is often negative.

My point is that there is no “balance of nature”.

That term was invented by the environmentalists way back when.

It implies that if mankind just disappeared nature would be in some mythical balance where all species of flora and fauna survive.

Of course it is not true. Nature is in constant transition. Some species thrive, some die off.

Climate changes. Continents shift. Earthquakes, floods, locusts. It isn’t our fault.

92

Zap, you are playing word games, nothing more. Of course we aren’t responsible for natural incidents. Yes, some of those natural incidents are in fact catastrophic.

However, and it isn’t fair to cry “gloom and doom” when people are discussion real risks, we ourselves have the ability to impact the world on a global level now as well.

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we went ahead and created a catastrophe. I’m not talking about losing a species here and there, which you right off as normal, but something incredibly catastrophic… in that it causes us to spend trillions of dollars to either fight it or fix it at a later date.

Whoa, that should be your language. Were talking economic damage… massive migrations of population, omg, gloom and doom. Sigh.

93

[quote]vroom wrote:
Zap, you are playing word games, nothing more. Of course we aren’t responsible for natural incidents. Yes, some of those natural incidents are in fact catastrophic.

However, and it isn’t fair to cry “gloom and doom” when people are discussion real risks, we ourselves have the ability to impact the world on a global level now as well.

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we went ahead and created a catastrophe. I’m not talking about losing a species here and there, which you right off as normal, but something incredibly catastrophic… in that it causes us to spend trillions of dollars to either fight it or fix it at a later date.

Whoa, that should be your language. Were talking economic damage… massive migrations of population, omg, gloom and doom. Sigh.[/quote]

Vroom in the 70’s and 80’s they were claiming that pollution was creating a new ICE AGE. In 1988 they switched to global warming.

Nobody knows what is happening. It is too complex. Keep studying the issue, don’t quash valid dissenting opinions and don’t make sweeping decisions until we have a much better base of knowledge.

There is a lot of environmental work that needs to be done. Focus on what we know works.

94

[quote]hspder wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
The obvious solution is to plant more trees to help with the C02.

First of all, please stop writing C02 (Charlie-zero-two) and 02 (zero-two). It’s annoying. Not having the 2 in subscript is already bad enough; let’s not murder the right nomenclature more than it needs to, OK? Write CO2 (Charlie-Oscar-Two) and O2 (Oscar-Two), or, even better, “Carbon Dioxide” and “Oxygen”.

Secondly, the amount of trees that would need to be planted to deal with all the extra Carbon Dioxide we’re putting out (and by extra I mean all the Carbon Dioxide besides what we breathe out) would require reclaiming massive land areas that are now being used for agriculture, cities – and possibly even some landfills would be needed. Trees don’t grow in the oceans or in the desert. You need to take up arable land to plant them. So, it’s possibly the single most expensive solution of all, and one that could make the lack of food that we already have (and will be much worse in 50 years) even more serious.

(if you don’t know what arable land is, read Arable - Wikipedia )

And even if we did plant all those trees, you do realize that it would take several decades for them to start curbing the Carbon Dioxide (they don’t grow overnight, you know), and it might be just too late then.

That does NOT mean we should kill off more trees; the fact that we would have problems finding space for planting more of them, or that it would take ages for them to grow tells us that we should spare the existing ones even harder, and make sure we dramatically reduce the cutting ASAP, especially because they?re cutting them up in areas that are not really good arable land.

What does grow in water, and is a much better source of Oxygen (and consumer or Carbon Dioxide) is Phytoplankton. Problem is, we’re screwing that up too. We’ve let it grow out of control in some areas (they feed off pollutants) – especially in rivers and lakes – which unavoidably leads to it dying off in massive amounts (overpopulation tends to do that), which actually takes a toll on the amount of oxygen, because the decomposition process consumes it; on the other hand, because Phytoplankton is extremely sensitive to increases in temperature, it’s dying off also in the oceans, in gigantic numbers. That death means that even if the Carbon Dioxide is not the cause of the global warming, global warming will inevitably result in massive increases in Carbon Dioxide level, because all the Phytoplankton will die off. And, as I say above, if Carbon Dioxide goes too high, we all turn blue and die…

[/quote]

First, I want to say that I was just joking about cutting down the trees, etc.

Next, I respect your research and regradless of “warming” feel we need to limit and/or stop all forms of pollution, particularly fusel fuel related. So I’m already on-board in what should be the goal of your positon, “stop fosel fuel pollution”.

Next, I appreciate the reserach you have done, but also feel you should read more than one source or position. The warming trends you indicate are actually based on theory and conjecture, not fact. There are also scienists on the other side saying that the earths surface is actually a little colder than in years past. But again, this comes from a different measuring system (earth core temp and not air temp). But I digress.

My point is that we have to go with what we know as fact. We don’t know if their is global warming or cooling as fact. However, we do know that there is global pollution, which is a fact we can and have measured. So using what we do know we reduce or stop pollution.

This would be the reasonable approach. Anything else would just be politically motivated.

95

[quote]vroom wrote:
Lorisco, the DNC has very little input on anything I think, especially since I don’t even know their opinions on any of this.

You claim to be neither left nor right, but you have some scientific knowledge to impart concerning CO2?

Get real. The garbage you are spewing should be considered pollution. I understand that CO2 is natural, but that doesn’t mean that too much of it can’t be harmful.

The fact that it is used in various life processes, doesn’t mean that life is limitless in its ability to adapt to increasing levels of CO2.

You are simply throwing out all kinds of baseless conjecture, which is really pointless. Try coming up with something realistic, and I’ll be happy to discuss it.

Concern about the environment is not a “left” vs “right” issue, or at least it should not be.[/quote]

Really sport? Then tell me why it is that I have stated several times that I agree we need to stop the fusel fuel use and pollution all together and you still think that is not realistic? If that is not your goal in holding to the warming theroy, what is your goal?

You say you are not politically motivated, yet the only reason you have to disagree with me is the warming theroy, not the goal of reducing pollution.

So if you holding to warming is not political, what is it? If polution is reduced regardless of this warming idea, will you have won or lost?

Maybe you just like to argue? (Nah, you have an agenda, right)

96

Well, sport, maybe I didn’t notice that you wanted to stop fossil fuel use and eliminate pollution in general.

It’s possible that I got caught up in discussion with more than one person at a time. Sue me.

What I do know, is that don’t have a damned agenda. I do believe it is foolish to assume we can do whatever we want and treat the earth like our own private trash can and not expect there to be consequences.

97

[quote]vroom wrote:
Well, sport, maybe I didn’t notice that you wanted to stop fossil fuel use and eliminate pollution in general.

It’s possible that I got caught up in discussion with more than one person at a time. Sue me.

What I do know, is that don’t have a damned agenda. I do believe it is foolish to assume we can do whatever we want and treat the earth like our own private trash can and not expect there to be consequences.[/quote]

I’m with you there bro!

I just wasn?t sure why you were fighting me because my only issue was whether warming is real, not that we don?t need to stop pollution. We need to stop pollution regardless of warming. That is and has always been my position.

(See you in court!)

98

Here is a primer on global warming, for those that don’t understand the greenhouse effect…

http://planetforlife.com/gwarm/globghc.html

Note, this is basically just a very simple science piece which explains why the earth stays warmer than the moon, for example.

It talks about different wavelengths of light and the effect that different substances have on these different wavelengths.

Since it seemed so apolitical and didn’t really get into the nitty gritty of the global warming issue with respect to polution, it looked like a good read for those “refuting” the science.

99

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Nobody knows what is happening.[/quote]

You mean you wish we didn’t know what was happening? Warming is definitely happening, and it is happening faster than at any prior time we can find out about.

Cruise lines are selling tickets with the line that if you haven’t seen Alaska yet, you definitely should before it melts completely.

100

For all you Bushies, your fearless leader had this to say while at the G8:

“I believe that greenhouse gases are creating a problem, a long-term problem that we have got to deal with,” Bush said.

So, I guess you may want to modify which talking points you sputter in response to this topic. However, it just so happens that Bush doesn’t want to bother dealing with this issue right now.