Global Warming: What Do You Think ?
I know it is often at your peril that one wades into the waters of a topic like this but I thought it might be interesting to see what we thought on various topics
Personally I adopt (perhaps not surprisingly) a fairly moderate position on the topic. Unlike some on the right (e.g, Limbaugh et al) I do believe global warming is real. There clearly has been an increase in overall surface temperatures over the last 50 years and I think it is also clear that these increases will have an impact on the environment.
However I do think some of the objections from the non GW crowd are reasonable. For example it is reasonable to question how much the temperatures have increased. It is only in this century that weather-gathering has become a true science and thus to compare temperatures from today to ones from 1850 is of debatable value.
Further, I also think it is reasonable to say that a significant portion of the increase is the result of a normal cycle. Indeed reading suggest than the 1750-1900 period was actually unusually cool compared to normal reading so some of that increase may simply be restoring the norm.
Finally I think it is fair to debate what good it does the US and Europe to make major changes in our daily lives when India and China are pouring out huge amounts of pollution with no sign of slowing down.
Now none of this does not mean that we should not do everything we can to have clean water and clean air. Even if there was no GW at all, this would be a good idea. But we also need to balance those changes with the impact they have on our daily lifestyle. Unless we all want to give up our computers and move into stone caves, we need to offer a balance
So what do you think gang ?
How real is the problem? How much is due to humans and how much due to nature? How much of it is truly bad and how much normal cycles? And how far should we go to correct things?
Have at it. If we get a good discussion going, we can make this a regular thing
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The problem is so real that we can now only make it not as bad as it is going to be. Over here in Europe, words like “Science” and “Research” are not considered bad words. People respect scientific work and the people that do it. So when the scientists in Europe started to freak out, Europe started to make changes. Sure, the US and China were still pouring waste into the water, air, and soil, but at least Europe could do its part to make the world a little more habitable in the future. Of course, the US has now finally woken up. People are at least considering that we might have a serious problem on our hands and are thinking about maybe doing something about it…if it isn’t too tough on the hurting economy.
way too little and way too late.
The major advantage that the EU has over the US right now is that that are crushing the US in green technology. The energy of the future is being produced in Europe, while the US ships its manufacturing jobs to China and India.
To say it a little more directly…
By actively ignoring the problem during prosperous times, the US managed to slit both of its wrists… environment and economy.
The amount of intentionally bogus information out there has taken it’s toll, as has our badly atrophied critical thinking ability as a culture. Frankly Americans should be embarrassed to have so many citizens who imagine the jury is even still out on this. The USA should be leading the way, not wallowing.
What ShannonLeee said.
As a chemical engineer by schooling and an environmental consultant (dealing in air quality) by trade, I feel as though I can weigh in on this from both angles.
From one side, there could be costs to doing business depending on the strategy taken. Regulations can and do have real effects on my clients’ daily operations. They are forced into positions where they have to make tough decisions about plant operations. This can be as severe as shutting a plant down (though it’s been rare-to-never that I’ve experienced a plant shut down simply due to regulations that were not mitigated by multiple other forces at play).
On the other hand, many people would be taken aback if they knew the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) output from a single facility (hundreds of thousands to millions of tons per year – feel free to look up the emission factors developed by EPA in 40 CFR 98). From a simple model (looking at sources and sinks of GHGs [CO2, specifically]), one can reason that as the population grows – requiring a) more power (power plants = more sources), b) more land (cutting down trees = less sinks), c) more plastic goods (more chemical plants = more sources), d) more wood products (cutting down more trees = less sinks), e) more vehicles (more sources), and f) more food (more plants = more sinks) – CO2 will continue to increase while those sinks in which CO2 can be absorbed (trees/plants) may very well be decreasing. Another item to consider is that CO2 can be absorbed by the ocean, which in turn creates a more acidic environment (dissolved CO2 throws the pH downward – think of sodas), but there’s only so much concentration of CO2 that sink can take up as well.
I do not doubt that we are also potentially in an natural warming cycle; the true test is how much of what is happening is attributable to the natural cycle (something we cannot control) and how much of it is anthropogenic (which we can control). Strides are being made, however, in introducing electric cars and hybrids. Many companies have sustainability policies in which environmentalism and business run hand-in-hand (Georgia-Pacific and International Paper, for instance, replant a massive number of forests that they rotate). It is truly a global problem with multiple stake-holders and it’s reasonable to ask why we should potentially stunt existing parts of our economy now when other countries are unwilling to do so.
What’s more, and this is the kicker for me, the national tone RE: trust of science has been dismal. Many suspect scientists of agendas – however agenda-driven is not GOOD science and most scientists know this. Putting the cart before the horse rarely ever produces the results expected. In the current political environment, I proudly display a magnet on my car that says “Support our Scientists”
I have a friend that has been studying climate change for well over a decade. He told me a while ago that it was too late. Change is coming and it is going to be deadly. There is little we can do now to stop it…we can only stunt it.
Just so we know what we are saying…
Climate change and air pollution are/is going to kill lots and lots of people… millions of people…
I hope the advantage to our economy is worth the dead.
Let scientists debate it, but it is here and at the least we could try to minimize the human causes.
I’m glad Mr. Edaburn, admits that there is a problem, because this is the first hurdle for us to overcome. However, in regards to attributing some portion of our current dilemma to a natural warming cycle (because instrument readings go back only about a century and a half) Mr. Edaburn should consider that scientists have accessed fairly accurate knowledge about earth’s climate going back about 2000 years. This is done by the use of proxy studies, which analyze environmental data gathered from natural sources, which are then used to derive knowledge about the climate well into the past before there were accurate instrument readings available. Some of this knowledge is gleaned from studies of ocean coral, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes, and ice cores. The ability to evaluate such data, is well documented and there have been several programs on shows like NOVA about it. There is a scientific discipline which is called paleoclimatology which has revealed and confirmed much data by using solid scientific methodology. All of the knowledge gained through these proxy studies has concluded that the world today is hotter than at any time up to about, 2000 years ago. If Mr. Edaburn or any commenter in this forum needs to study the matter, here is a website address dedicated to answering many of the most common criticisms of climate science.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
The most daunting obstacles to green energy development and taking positive steps to control CO2 levels, is that we have heard so much propaganda about the matter that, many of us remain in the dark about the real issues at stake.
It’s understandable that we may balk at changing much of our energy use in radical, but necessary, ways. People who have spent generations mining coal in facilities which are woefully inadequate when it comes to the safety of their own employees, still understand that their employment there represents solid jobs, and coal miners will need other jobs to replace them.
The worst of all these obstacles is that, as a result of misinformation campaigns carried out by corporate entities like Exxon Mobile, as well as our own lack of scientific knowledge, we will have little political will to do what is essential. We all know there must be some sort of transition, but, when many of us do not get the straight facts about the problem and, about the remaining precious time we have, vital opportunities will continue to be wasted!
I have also heard some scientists who say we are already past the tipping point and cannot really reverse the effects of global warming, but, we CAN perhaps, prevent it from getting much, much worse.
The attempt to drill our way out of the problem, may result in temporary energy independence at some level, but obviously we are shooting ourselves in the foot to cure a cramp, by doing so. The stark reality is that regardless of what we believe or don’t believe, the trend towards ever more severe weather patterns has already begun. In the end, as in most cases which are not embraced by the public, we will only acknowledge the science when we have no other choice anymore. And, we will probably be forced to take extreme measures to limit CO2 only when we have no other alternatives left to pursue!
While we complain about the other guys avoiding the issue, we are busy being blamed by them!
Peter, my friend does exactly what you talk about. His career choices were to either search for oil or the history of the earths climate.
My America, land of the free (sure, sure), home of the brave (ha ha), cannot be trusted with simple traffic laws, let alone issues requiring more than hitting a switch on a remote control/device. Apathy, laziness, elitist fantasies are the rule of the day, with critical thinking reduced to “I am, therefore I vomit”. I could go on…nooo..ok, I’m preaching to the choir, again. Until corporate “leaders” are jailed for crimes against humanity…
petew, you could add that the rush to perhaps crudely fashioned fracking is releasing methane which is ten times as bad as CO2 (not to mention that they are screwing up the water supply).
I know they are trying very hard to come up with a nuclear fusion solution, but in the meantime i think some of the more advanced and smaller nuclear fission plants should be fast tracked.
When considering what scientists think of global warming articles like this are educational. The majority of professional scientific associations recognize human contributions to global warming. Then there’s this interesting report on skeptic organizations, though it’s a few years out of date. This article on Weather Underground is also informative.
What human influence has greatly affected is the rate of change. The faster the change is the less time we and other species have to adapt to these changes. In addition the pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere at the levels we currently do has another nasty side effect, the acidification of the oceans.
There are those who say that we should just focus on mitigating the effects because of the economic impact that trying to drastically change our energy use and sources of energy would have. But who says that the effects can be mitigated? Some think that the food growing areas of the world will just shift location and probably increase in acreage, even claiming that since plants use CO2 the increase will help them grow. None of these are necessarily what will happen. First, the most obvious fact is that the availability of fresh water and the quality of the soil matter even more than temperature when it comes to raising crops. It is unfortunately far too likely that the availability of fresh water will be negatively impacted by global warming. Look at what has been happening to water supplies in North America because of snow pack reduction and shifts in the speed and timing of the melting of what snow pack there is. Soil quality in many areas that global warming critics say will become arable is an unknown and in some areas we do know that the land there isn’t that good for farming. Ocean warming and acidification isn’t good for sea life and we depend on the oceans for a lot of our food. Then there’s the fact that the cost of mitigation for those effects we can try to do something about have a very good chance of being far more expensive than the critics think.
dduck,
Yes, there are a number of greenhouse gasses besides CO2. Not only does methane have a greater comparative effect on the environment, it comes not only from fracking, but also from the manure produced by farm animals on agricultural sites. Also, vast amounts of it will probably be released as the polar ice cap melts and release the organic remains of vegetation from many millenniums ago.
Jim Satterfield is also correct about the fact that since plants, earth and oceans absorb CO2 naturally, as forests are depleted by encroaching human populations, there will be less plant life to absorb CO2 and recycle it as oxygen. I believe deforestation also depletes the ability of soil to absorb CO2, and as the oceans absorbs ever increasing amount, it tends to make the water more acidic, which is easily lethal for many forms of sea life.
This problem really does manifest itself in the “web of life” and is not so easily prevented. The question is, how soon will we learn this? Consider also that, as world crops are effected, insect populations follow the warmer weather, and up to a million species could become extinct by the end of the 21st century, every aspect of life will be more unstable–including food shortages for burgeoning human populations, and, the fights for dominance that we will see because of increasing Geo-political tensions.
Scientists have worked diligently to make us aware of this, even when we didn’t want to. We should have been more concerned even 20 years ago, because tell-tale signs were becoming more obvious even then.
Petew: I tried. In effect, to quote H. G. Wells, “You bastards, I told you so!”
Now, to get to the current point: if you own property near the ocean, sell. You likely will own ocean in twenty to thirty years instead. The only promising thing I have seen recently (unfortunately I was unable to pursue the program) was some sort of genetic engineering that could create man-made bacteria/critters that can use photosynthesis. If we employed these on a massive scale we “might” be able to reverse the CO2 levels. That might have a net cooling effect.
Suggestions: visit the Florida Everglades, you many not get another chance.
Go see the ice bergs in the North Atlantic, once again, it may be your last chance.
If you live near a river that swells in the spring due to glacial melt, watch out for increasing mudslides.
If you live in Bangladesh, move.
If you live in China, move.
If you live in Delaware, move.
Go see Cape Cod before it becomes Cod Sandbar.
Go see Cape Hattaras before it becomes a sandbar as well.
Consider buying land cheaply in Canada (I hear that Saskatchewan and North West Territory are fairly cheap at the moment).
Plan on Alaska having a huge increase in population.
I agree with all you guys, but not that you ducked the nuclear option.
Yes it has it’s own problems, but they have been greatly lessened with newer technology.
Water, water, everywhere. Whoops, that doesn’t any anymore and it should be moved to the top of the worry list.
dd, I am still a big supporter of nuclear energy. I think it is a great stop gap measure until better technologies can be expanded/discovered.
Some day we will get fusion.
Rcoutme,
As you and other comenters have said, there is always the possibility that science will someday be able to solve some of these dire problems. I certainly hope so! But until then the best thing to encourage is that everyone gets the unvarnished truth about what is happening and, believes it! We can use chemicals as solutions, but still Mother Nature knows best, and so, seeing as the earth is not an infinite system, the best thing to do would be simply to transition to other energy sources that produce little or no CO2. I also agree that Nuclear power might best be used as a temporary stepping stone until wind and solar, among others resources, are perfected.
Another large area that creates problems is our general lack of Scientific knowledge–allowing us be fooled by the bull from global warming deniers. I personally, am not a scientist but, I respect and accept the expert opinions of climate scientists–people who really KNOW what they are talking about! Nobody thinks we should hire a brick layer to do brain surgery ( and I am not knocking bricklayers ) yet all of the groups spreading lies, are given more credit for accuracy than the scientists that have studied the problem for many decades–go figure! We just don’t seem to want the truth!
Anyway, I hope there will be some way found to restore our environment thorough science. If not, we truly will exist in a Brave New World full of challenges that human beings have never, nor or should ever be, required to face!
Actually, dduck, I agree with you on nuclear, especially that much more attention needs to be paid to developing and deploying thorium reactors.
yup