The New Global Warming Thread

[GhostintheShell]

^^^Exactly, something interesting for me was that this year I bought a new honda civic hybrid for my commuter vehicle. I could have bought pretty much any car I wanted, but I bought a hybrid.

Why is this interesting? Because it was driven by economics, rather than any sort of concern for "global climate change". With the high price of fuel and the number of kilometers I drive each year the difference in the fuel consumption saves me almost what the car costs per month compared to my other vehicles.

People will change their behavior when it is designed to be convenient and makes economic sense, not just because of the bonus of environmental prudence.

[Steeler]

The development of hybrid technology in the first place has been dependent on external pressures, not market forces. And if ossified market interests had not continually slowed progress in this area, you'd see a lot more electrics and hybrid available at even better efficiencies. It's important to recognize that markets can slow innovation just as much as they can promote it. Utter dependence on the invisible hand is not wise when talking about public policy.

As in all things, balance is required.

[Kittamaru]

Oh for the love of... look.

We can NOT hurt this planet.
Anything we do, in the end, will be fixed.

Can we kill ourselves off? Sure! Will it damage the planet? A little. Will it repair itself as soon as we're gone? You bet!

The planet is currently switching poles- north is becoming south, south is becoming north. It happens every now and then. A side effect is that the magnetic field around the earth is weaker, so more ozone is being peeled away by solar wind. Thus, temperatures go up.

how much of this has to do with greenhouse gasses? Not much. How much has to do with de-forestation? A little.

how much of it actually matters? NONE!

We can NOT destroy earth. It is MUCH bigger than we are. it will kick our asses

Every time.

Mother Nature FTW

[USN_Squid]

Here is an interesting point-by-point counter to the IPCC report. It really gets going on page 5:

Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Special Advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, reviews the IPCC's fourth quarter Assessment Report.

[El_Gringo_Grande]

Originally Posted by USN_Squid

Here is an interesting point-by-point counter to the IPCC report. It really gets going on page 5:

Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Special Advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, reviews the IPCC's fourth quarter Assessment Report.

Opens up a blank page. That is funny!!!!

Edit
(Just an error with my pdf reader being out of date. But still funny to me!)

[El_Gringo_Grande]

Ok, I read it and it is rather shallow in its assessment and inconsistent.
First it points out that China, India and other countries will soon bypass U.S. in carbon output because of more coal generators. But then says that this output will diminish because we are going to run out of gas and oil?
It ignores that coal, which is "dirtier" than oil and gas, will still be around even if (and that is a big if) oil and gas do actually run out.
It also seems to criticize the UN report because it's figures have come down some. Doesn't that kinda show that the process is working? If this was purely a conspiracy by those evil liberal greenies wouldn’t the numbers go up?

[Obi]

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

Oh for the love of... look.

We can NOT hurt this planet.
Anything we do, in the end, will be fixed.

Can we kill ourselves off? Sure! Will it damage the planet? A little. Will it repair itself as soon as we're gone? You bet!

The planet is currently switching poles- north is becoming south, south is becoming north. It happens every now and then. A side effect is that the magnetic field around the earth is weaker, so more ozone is being peeled away by solar wind. Thus, temperatures go up.

how much of this has to do with greenhouse gasses? Not much. How much has to do with de-forestation? A little.

how much of it actually matters? NONE!

We can NOT destroy earth. It is MUCH bigger than we are. it will kick our asses

Every time.

Mother Nature FTW

Source? I'm not challenging you, I want to educate myself.

[Diceman]

Originally Posted by Obi

Source? I'm not challenging you, I want to educate myself.

I somewhat doubt that there is an authoritative source to provide that answer. That said, an intuitive check can be done on the integrity of premise: the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs.

I believe the latest thinking on the dinosaur extinction is that a comet hit the earth and threw up enough matter (water vapour, I believe) into the upper atmosphere as to completely disrupt the climate (some have described it as causing what was in effect a nuclear winter - although I don't know if this idea is still current) to the point where the dinosaurs (and a goodly number of other things) were down for the count. Basically, it was as close to an apocalyptic scenario as exists in Earth's history, and here we are with lush forests, teeming seas, clean water and fertile fields. I believe that Kittamaru is right - no matter what we do, the Earth will carry on, and will continue to serve as a source of life.

That said, I would reply to Kittamaru with one further thought: had the dinosaurs known their future, the idea that the Earth would carry on regardless of apocalyptic comets would likely serve as little comfort in the last years and days.

[Rincewind]

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

Mother Nature FTW

I think you meant "Mother Earth FTW."

After all, there won't be much 'nature' left to 'mother' when we're done with this rock.

[Kerostasis]

Quite honestly, I would be more impressed by the report if it was actually written by the scientists involved, instead of the politicians who talked to the scientists involved.

[Acreo Aeneas]

On the subject of water vapor and global warming...Honda in a recent chat with Car and Driver Magazine was quoted that they would have their hydrogen engines ready for US consumers in their Civics and Hondas by sometime in 2008. So it's only like a year and some away...would make our current hybrids die even more quickly.

[Kittamaru]

Exactly Diceman.

Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Gaiya, Terra of Sol, ect. Many names, same hunk of living rock :P

And there is no one single authoritive source to my statement. Just a compilation of observations of past events. There are only 3 ways to truely "Kill" the earth.

1) Detonate the core (next to impossible with current technologh)

2) Kinetic mass drivers - use huge, magnetic power mass drives to hurls large chunks of the earth (large being hundreds of kilotonnes) into the sun. This would takes hundreds of years even with a million mass drivers working at once.

3) Smash a DENSER planet into the earth - this would result in total obliteration as it would destabilize the crust to the point of the earth simply Popping like a baloon.

where are the nukes you say? Nukes would only kill off most of the life- we'd still have roaches :P - and wouldn't phase anything that lives more than, I believe, 32 inches below ground level. So anything living deep underground would survive, the polar ice caps (unless you nuke a bunch of penguins) would survive, ect. The nuclear winter would bring about another ice age, thus making earth restart where it origionally was after the last few ice ages.

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

There are only 3 ways to truely "Kill" the earth.

1) Detonate the core (next to impossible with current technologh)

2) Kinetic mass drivers - use huge, magnetic power mass drives to hurls large chunks of the earth (large being hundreds of kilotonnes) into the sun. This would takes hundreds of years even with a million mass drivers working at once.

3) Smash a DENSER planet into the earth - this would result in total obliteration as it would destabilize the crust to the point of the earth simply Popping like a baloon.

You forgot finding the frequency of resonance of the entire planet. That would surely do it...

And there have got to be many, many other methods to destroy our planet.

[Evo<^|SiNz|^>]

I don't think literally destroying the planet is what we're worried about anyway - it's that humans could be turning it to a place where future generations of humans won't be capable of living.

[Kittamaru]

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

You forgot finding the frequency of resonance of the entire planet. That would surely do it...

And there have got to be many, many other methods to destroy our planet.

Not possible mate. Each item that makes up the earth has it's own frequency. You'd have to have one resonance for each, which would interfere with the others, so on and so forth My mate and I came across this in an attempt to make a true 3D hologram- resonate the ambient particulate matter in the air to make it "solid", then reflect laserlight of varying wavelengths off of it. We got to the "solid" part... but it only made some of the dust solid Using more than one frequency broke up the others

And there aren't that many ways to totaly destroy the earth- tis a lot bigger than we are

Elimination of it's ability to sustain complex life is easy- napalm 100% of the earths crust, followed by a hailstorm of nukes. The resulting hot/cold compression would kill off any animal and plant life before it could adapt (anything that can withstand the napalm would die in the resulting ice age, and anything able to withstand that cold would die in the napalm attack)