60 replies to this topic

[Shirou]

I was browsing through some articles on the new statesman through my faith in boredom, and I found this:

http://www.newstates...om/200712190004

We all know that recently a lot of other sounds regarding this subject have arisen, mostly attending us to the claim that earth's climate is so very much unpredictable and that we aren't even able to influence it. This would only back up that thesis.

Another Thesis is that increased gasses in the atmosphere would also increase the average Albedo (the ''rate'' at which earth's atmosphere can send radiation back into space before it even touches the crust) of the outer surface, and thus provide a reverse to the greenhouse effect.

To me these are all little one sentenced statements while the climate is so unimaginably complex that I don't think we are even close to understanding it. Truely, if we look at Ice-core investigation, they only prove that the atmosphere has been highly deviating ever since, and that it is only expectable that it would change some time.

Discuss.

Edited by Shirou, 15 January 2008 - 21:24.

[Overdose]

Take it from a enviromentalist. Global warming never stopped. Want to know why? Because the current status was blown out of proportion. Why? Because in order to get people to be aware and get off their lazy butts to do something you need to 'make a storm out of a glass of water' as we say over here. But mind you, that doesn't mean it's over in fact we're still in great risk if we don't watch ourselves but plenty of improvements have been made. By having all vehicles running on cleaner bio fuels we'll put us at the low yellow mark. Right now we're at orange.

[Shirou]

It's probably a good thing that we blame ourselves for the global warming. That way the change from fossilized fuels to alternatives will be made more easy because there is another argument that things must change.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still quite skeptic about this article as Al Gore would probably be able to give arguments that compromise any validity here (which is to be expected from an ex-politician ), but if those facts the author states are true then where are we with our predictable climate models and Al Gore's nice numbers about how very much the sea level will rise and how very high the CO2 level will be.

I don't think it is predictable at all. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Overdose]

There will be always be villains to fight against and causes to fight for. In the past were smog from coal power plants and factories that reduced the quality of our air, just 10 years ago it was the CFC and our ozone layer and today it's global emissions and global warming. God knows what new way mankind will find to passively kill ourselves.

Edited by Overdose, 15 January 2008 - 21:44.

[Jok3r]

Ahhh... But are biofuels the answer? Biofuels are, infact, not much better than fossil fuels- They have mostly been developed to keep costs down and reduce many nations mid-east oil dependency. The technologies we have to move towards, do not involve burning anything.

Swim~Listen~Game

[Overdose]

Bio fuels are about as technological feasible as it gets sadly but in the future that's certain. Bio fuels exist for more than 50 years and it took you people THAT long to realize it's a good thing. Just by having a 15% mix of ethanol into the fuel of your car will cut the pollutive emissions of your vehicle by around 10% and your car will get more power out of it too. I for one, ever since my first car 6 years ago have always run on 100% ethanol and I'm very proud of it. Besides it's fun to watch a car that is the same model as mine take 1 extra second to get to 100km/h right next to me simply because it's running on a part ethanol mix (pure petrol cars are dead here). =D

Edited by Overdose, 15 January 2008 - 21:51.

[Shirou]

Overdose, on 15 Jan 2008, 22:43, said:

There will be always be villains to fight against and causes to fight for. In the past were smog from coal power plants and factories that reduced the quality of our air, just 10 years ago it was the CFC and our ozone layer and today it's global emissions and global warming. God knows what new way mankind will find to passively kill ourselves.

I tnink smog and the ozon gap is quite different to this. This is Global. Global warming affects all of us on our tiny little planet. The smog could be breathed in and seen by the people, and thus something was rapidly done about it. Also when people found out about that the Ozon gap was real they got really afraid because the ozon layer is what really protects us from the destructive radation of the sun. What happened? CFK's were forbidden immediately and in current times we are seeing a small improvement of the ozon layer again.

With global warming it lies different. It's about the entire atmosphere. It is also so unpredictable. Unpredictability scares people. People want to be in control. And hey, with the smog and the ozon layer we were able to do something about it, why wouldn't we now? Well, the answer is simply. This is not purely a chemistry lesson, which those other two causes were. This is about physics, this is about energy. And that is one thing that is so unnattainable (how many joules of energy in the form of warmth would there be in our atmosphere?) for our people. Still, people want to be in control. Thus they blame themselves, because if you have made something go wrong, you can also fix it! problem solved! Let's celebrate!

Biofuels are not the answer at all, too. They are perhaps something that can be used to flatten the change to real alternatives.

[Nerdsturm]

Most of those technologies are decades away from being useful, though. Biofuels aren't a huge step up from petroleum, but at least they give other opitions besides gasoline. Also, if its processed using clean energy sources instead of gas or coal it is a decent improvement over regular fuels.
Hopefully, global warming will just be like the past environmental scares Overdose mentioned and prove to be blown way out of proportion and fixed with very little cost in only a few years, though this does not really seem to be the case.

[Jok3r]

I know that BioFuels are definitely an improvement, but, like Hybrids, and even electric car's, they are short term solutions to a long term problem.
As of now, the cost in emitted carbon to create the battery for a hybrid is immense, and IIRC, close to that of driving a hummer. The issue is, as my father has said, in infrastructure. Because we lack the infrastructure needed to build hybrids and power electric cars with green energy, they will be what they are now- Fashion statements. What we need as of now is a switch to the controversial, but non-emitting, nuclear power. With that, we have a stopgap until the infrastructure we need for green power becomes feasible.

Swim~Listen~Game

[Chyros]

swim-listen-game, on 15 Jan 2008, 22:57, said:

I know that BioFuels are definitely an improvement

Hah, don't be too sure of that. Seed oil (a "biological" petrol replacement) is in the end actually more polluting that diesel. Whatever is said in the media about pollution, global warming and biological alternatives and the like is just as untrustworthy as what politicians and petrol refiners say about it. People just invent some kind of alternative method for doing something, stick "biological" or "macrobiotic" in front of it and sell it, whether it actually helps to reduce pollution or not.

The ethanol Overdose mentions is a great way to spare the environment a bit, not chiefly because its combustion emits less greenhouse gases (because it still does emit them a lot), but because it can be made cheaply, efficiently as well as relatively cleanly out of fermented sugar cane, of which Brazil has of course tons and tons. Other countries however don't have as much sugar cane and would thus need to make it out of other crops, which is way less efficient and not at all as pollution-reducing as it might appear at first glance.

Still, the environment is under less of an attack than thought at first. More efficient energy-involving processes and the banning of the most environmentally destructive substances (like CFC's, the compounds chiefly responsible for the depletion of ozone in the ozone layer) have put the earth on a track from which it is not anywhere near as much danger as many would believe. At first it was thought the hole in the ozone layer would be permanent; in fact, ozone is regenerated in the atmosphere by nature due to sunlight factilitating the oxidation of oxygen and water into ozone.

And in the end, we can do nothing to change the climate if our current ice age (yes, that's right: we live in an ice age!) stops anyway. After all, during most of the earth's history, the water level was about 7-12 meters higher and there was no snow or ice on either pole or on mountain tops.

Edited by Chyros, 16 January 2008 - 17:09.

[Dauth]

Ok, time to dismiss 1 myth

Hybrid cars are bad!

Petrol at 35mpg and some battery, wheres the electricity made? If its fossil fuels then the losses it has means energy in the battery is worse for environment than the petrol.

Ozone protecting from cosmic rays, well kinda but i'm quite happy to rely on the magnetic field created by the molton spinning iron core of this planet for a bit longer anyway.

[Ion Cannon!]

Well in the 80's they were predicting an ice age If you had said the earth was getting warmer then. You would have been laughed at ^

Really we cannot be sure of the effect we are having on global warming. The global temperature fluctuates naturally anyway. Due to many things such as milankovich cycles. We have had ice ages and whatnot before. The worry is that the global temperature operates on a metastable system. Up to a point it will correct itself by attempting to reverse the change. But once past a certain threshold point, the climate will adopt a new reference point. IE say the current reference point is 20. And the threshold is 22. Once past the threshold value it will not revert itself. And the reference point will change to say 24. As a result of this. If the said warming continues the reference point + threshold will continue to increase. Of course its possible the temperature might drop again and eventually revert back to the original reference point. But only time will tell.

Either way. If global warming is a sham just a natural process or if it is really serious. Its making countries and goverments implement some necessary changes. Which are long overdue anyway.

[Shirou]

Dauth, on 16 Jan 2008, 18:35, said:

Ok, time to dismiss 1 myth

Hybrid cars are bad!

Petrol at 35mpg and some battery, wheres the electricity made? If its fossil fuels then the losses it has means energy in the battery is worse for environment than the petrol.

Ozone protecting from cosmic rays, well kinda but i'm quite happy to rely on the magnetic field created by the molton spinning iron core of this planet for a bit longer anyway.

I've also been learnt to regard the world with the first law of thermodynamics in mind.

[Dauth]

Thermodynamics for dummies

Three laws in the metaphor of gambling

1) You can't win

2) You can't break even

3) You can't leave the game

Every single reaction has losses to heat/light/sound the more conversions of energy the more energy lost to backgroundd.

[amazin]

i personally think a lot of stuff surrounding global warming is bullsh*t

i think all the liberals support it so they can 1. get money 2. look like the good guys by "saving our planet"

in the natural cycle of the globe it does heat and cool ever so slowly



that doesnt mean i disagree with cutting down on pollution and finding alternatives to fossil fuels eventually, it just shouldnt be our highest priority

[SolidSpartan117]

I agree with him tottaly, all the world ending is Bullshit! but we should all cut down and help the planet:)

I agree with him tottaly, all the world ending is Bullshit! but we should all cut down and help the planet:)

DELAYED 6x BY FLOOD CONTROL

[Shirou]

umm not dachamp, on 3 Mar 2008, 16:32, said:

i personally think a lot of stuff surrounding global warming is bullsh*t

i think all the liberals support it so they can 1. get money 2. look like the good guys by "saving our planet"

in the natural cycle of the globe it does heat and cool ever so slowly

I don't think you have watched An Inconvenient Truth now have you, where Al Gore precisely has arguments against what you are saying.

There is much more money going on in not doing something about it then in doing so.

"It ain't so much the things we don't know
that get us into trouble. It's the things we do
know that just ain't so." Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, however thought this up..

Copied by Al Gore, with good reason.

Edited by Aftershock, 04 March 2008 - 21:11.

[nova]

yes some one who agrees golobal warming is bs its a myth it dose not exist whell it dose but not because of humans its a natrual cycle and also if we but more gasses in the atmosphere it aslo keeps hear out its a myth for money and making them look like god guys and well plant more trees to remove the co2 well then you would starve the trees by to much photo synthis and couse flash fires from over abundance of oxegeyn its all natrual cycles and this stuff about radiotion from the sun because of us how the h*ll do we influnce the magneto sphere also if its global warming explain how alot of places are geting colder earths envroment alwas chances usa was an ocen the sehria desert was a jungle antartica was hot and the list goes on its a natraul cycle of the earth over exargerated for the benefet of the people that do it

[CommanderJB]

I don't supposed you've noticed the dramatic increase in the incidence of violent storms and the global average temperature that has been steadily increasing since records began? It's not a myth, it's happening, and environmentalists are not trying to scare you, it's just that what they've got to say is so frightening few people are willing to accept what they say.
Have a look at this graph and tell that peak at the end is part of the natural cycle:

Sorry for the size - I don't know how to do thumbnails.

Edited by CommanderJB, 05 March 2008 - 01:19.

[Chyros]

Actually, it is a natural cycle. We are currently in a (mild) ice age, and seemingly it's just reaching its end. Also, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has changed much, much more drastically in ancient times, before humans even existed than is shown in that graph.

I'd like to point out that during the majority of earth's history there wasn't an ice age; one or both polar caps were usually completely melted and sea water level was a lot higher, yet life didn't do that much worse. Of course, if water level suddenly rises seven meters, us frail humans would be in a rather sorry shape.

[CommanderJB]

Yes, a natural cycle does exist. Sorry if I didn't make that clear - I'm not trying to deny that. Current CO2 concentrations are, however, far beyond the upper peak of any of the previous observed cycles. I tried to find a graph which would show more time, but this was about as old as they got. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that hundreds of leading scientists from all around the world believe that we are at the very least contributing to the effect with significant impact.

The trouble is that whether or not it has happened before, it's getting warmer, the climate is changing as the energy level in the atmosphere is going up, and we are going to have to deal with it. Clear evidence from ice cores and deep-ocean sediment samples shows us that it doesn't stop just as it becomes uncomfortable for us either. So whether or not it's our fault is actually rather irrelevant. If it isn't, then that should just scare you all the more because that suggests that there's nothing we can do to stop it simply by reducing our emissions.

Edited by CommanderJB, 05 March 2008 - 01:18.

[Cryptkeeper]

you should also know this even if usa changes to completely clean fuel ie hydrogen if the infrastructure is heavily remade and the tech reaches near mordern fuel efficiency and every other technological advanced country does there will be one country who won't that being china and by the way china is quickly becoming the most co2 emmissions country in the world


and they won't stop they have stated they will not stop becuase it will halt there development

so wither the global warming theory is correct or not its going to happen becuase of china and the lack of certified effort from all other countries to stop using co2 fuels in the first place

a special type of galvanized material can extract hydrogen from water so hydrogen fuel could very well be made on the cheap too problem with it tho is who will fund him you have biofuel companies and oil companies trying to keep them at bay so we probably won't see those in awhile

[CommanderJB]

China is already doing a huge amount toward building renewable energy capacity - just look at the Three Gorges Dam, and they're also building giant (as in biggest-in-the-world) wind turbine farms in the north and initating multiple contracts with overseas experts to find new sources. The trouble is that no matter how much they build, they're growing so fast that it will never be enough.
You don't need a metal to extract hydrogen from water - all you need is an electric current. Surely you've done electrolysis before if you studied science at school?
Hydrogen is a good fuel, but it's fairly impractical for wide-spread motor vehicle or power generation use - it's very difficult to store, and given that you need power to produce it anyway, you can hardly burn it for energy with any efficiency. Anything's better than coal or oil-based products, but true energy reform is going to be extremely difficult because there's nothing that produces energy so cheaply or easily.

[Dauth]

Conservation of energy prevents using Electrolysis to get hydrogen to burn for fuel (in the form of hydrogen to water). You get too many losses. Golbal Warming may or may not have stopped since we have no idea how aerosol parrticles affect the temperature or the albedo of the Earth.

[Chyros]

cryptkeeper, on 5 Mar 2008, 3:01, said:

a special type of galvanized material can extract hydrogen from water

CommanderJB, on 5 Mar 2008, 3:13, said:

You don't need a metal to extract hydrogen from water - all you need is an electric current. Surely you've done electrolysis before if you studied science at school?

Actually you do need a metal to make hydrogen generation economically feasible, but maybe not in the way Crypt meant; you need a platinum catalyst to speed up the reaction. You may have had that at school too; drop a piece of platinum in a beaker with some water, and you'll notice bubbles begin to form on the metal's surface. Those are hydrogen bubbles .

CommanderJB, on 5 Mar 2008, 3:13, said:

Hydrogen is a good fuel, but it's fairly impractical for wide-spread motor vehicle or power generation use - it's very difficult to store, and given that you need power to produce it anyway, you can hardly burn it for energy with any efficiency. Anything's better than coal or oil-based products, but true energy reform is going to be extremely difficult because there's nothing that produces energy so cheaply or easily.

Actually a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases produces a very high amount of energy; in the electrolysis experiment you talk about, your teacher may have collected the generated oxygen and hydrogen in a balloon and lit it (they did it on our school anyway). They resulting bang from just a tiny bit of gas is quite impressive.

Also, the storage problem you describe is why current hydrogen fuel cell plans aren't drawn to generate hydrogen gas at full rate; this can take place at near-full efficiency anyway. However, when the sun stops shining, your car would stop too. Instead, the plan is to use hydrogen gas as a "store" for energy, meaning that your car can continue driving hours after it has had no sun. Unfortunately the efficiency of this process is as low as 10% IIRC.