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Global Warming Debate
An issue that is beginning to get some press, in regards to global warming, is how greenhouse gasses fit into the picture.
One side of the argument is saying that greenhouse gasses cause global warming and we need to reduce CO2 emissions. The other side says that increased greenhouse gasses are a result of global warming and not a cause of it, therefor curbing CO2 emissions does nothing to fix the problem.
Discuss
One side of the argument is saying that greenhouse gasses cause global warming and we need to reduce CO2 emissions. The other side says that increased greenhouse gasses are a result of global warming and not a cause of it, therefor curbing CO2 emissions does nothing to fix the problem.
Discuss
Comments
Do your share: Stop air pollution
Thursday, Feb. 15, 1968 — The problem of air pollution has been much in the news in recent years.
For people who live in metropolitan areas — which now means most of us — air pollution becomes more apparent all the time. The American Medical Association points out that there’s little doubt that pollutants in the air aren’t good for us. Just how serious a health problem is air pollution is a question still being studied. It has been associated with a number of various physical ills.
We read about air pollution, but it seldom occurs to us that we can do something about it. Isn’t air pollution merely a matter for the factory with the belching smokestack, or the apartment building with a smoky incinerator?
Actually, there are some things we can all do to reduce air pollution:
• Make it a point to know air pollution dangers, and seek from elected representatives legislation to control these hazards.
• An important source of air pollution is the exhaust pipe on the family auto. Keep the engine in good order. Have the exhaust system inspected regularly. This will not only reduce air pollution, it also will save money on gasoline.
• Keep your home furnace in good working order. Have it checked annually, both for your safety and for the sake of the community.
• Leaves, trash, and rubbish should not be burned in metropolitan areas. Arrange for the proper agency to haul them away to a proper disposal point.
Prevention of air pollution is a matter than must be met by the whole community. Proper laws are required where voluntary actions are inadequate. Tight enforcement of these laws is essential.
We can anticipate that air pollution will continue to be much in the news in the years ahead. The problem will be solved much sooner if all of us become aware that it is serious, and that all of us are involved in its ultimate solution.
More seriously: Where the heck did this one come from? There's a reason CO2 (and others) were named greenhouse gasses in the first place; they trap reflected heat and radiate it back towards the surface. What study or research has suggested otherwise?
I'll have to try to remember where I read that.
Why is everyone so focused on eliminating the cause of global warming (primarily CO2 generation) and not treating the symptoms (the presence of excessive CO2)?
Sure, it'd be nice if we emitted less CO2. However, the realities of chemistry mean that to eliminate CO2 production in industry will take a ridiculous amount of time, money, and effort.
But here's something quick and easy, not to mention aesthetically pleasing: plant trees. That's right, plant fucking trees. They take CO2 out of the air and produce breathable oxygen! Everyone loves oxygen!
And if you don't have the room, the soil, the sunlight, or the seeds to plant trees, then simply make your own CO2 eliminating device by harnessing a miracle of nature: chlorophyll! Using this ancient, natural technology, we could process hitherto unheard-of amounts of CO2 into harmless, helpful (fire-causing, toxic) oxygen!
Of course, too much oxygen could be just as problematic as too much CO2, in different ways. We wouldn't want to fuck with our atmosphere without knowing what the effect would be.
But doesn't that apply to global warming in the first place? Anyone calling for a solution at this stage is ignoring the much greater need for increased scientific understanding of the issue. We need to know definitively if it exists, exactly what is causing it, and exactly how to fix the situation without harmful side effects. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.
Nevertheless, the need may be so great as to demand action before we understand the problem. Replacing gas-burning cars with hybrids and/or alternative energy vehicles is a great idea--more because of energy independence than because of environmental problems. Other than that, the logistics of retooling every industrial process in the world is so daunting that no one wants to go ahead and do it without knowing if it's even necessary.
So why not just plant trees? It won't hurt, and it might help. Plus, they're pretty. Everyone loves trees. Take the billions of dollars it will cost to even begin to combat global warming and just plant a metric fuck-ton of trees, everywhere we can find room for the fucking things. Then we can all feel happy and safe and go on generating CO2...which, by the way, we humans do without ever burning a single fossil fuel.
That said. A large majority of the scientific community agrees with global warming or global climate change. A few conservative Republicans and evangelicals disagree with said scientific community. You be the judge.
The excessive CO2 in the atmosphere will take thousands of years to break down or be absorbed by the ocean stopping the cause is easier as if someone devised a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere we would continue to burn fossil fuels. As a species we are not going to change our ways unless we have to. Also we would not need to change industrial process very much as the majority of greenhouse emissions come from cars and power plants. Personally I would think the best way to get rid of fossil fueled cars would be the same way 4 star petrol was removed from the market, phase out cars running on that technology replace them with something cheaper then increase taxation on the old vehicles making it better to own a hydrogen / hybrid / electric whatever is most convenient although it's unlikely to be hydrogen due to it's instability and the fact it requires more energy to extract than you get out from it.
A small side note greenpeace and mass media have no idea what the hell they are talking about most of the time. The best example I have is that a greenpeace [using Ryms phrase here] dirty hippie was telling passers by that cooling towers pumped greenhouse gases and pollutants into the atmosphere. All these people do is confuse the subject making it difficult for the scientific community to be heard.
There are a few scientists claiming the observed climate changes are not caused by humans. However, unlike what many skeptics claim, most climate scientists agree that much or most of these changes are caused by humans! They disagree on details! I am convinced that the most effective way to make people change their ways is to hurt their wallets. Triple the price on all fossil fuel, and you would see a dramatic change of attitude. It is possible that you misunderstood what the dirty hippie was saying, or he could have given a poor retelling of some real science. If the cooling towers use the heat pump principle, they are probably full of highly potent greenhouse gas (some thousands times more effective than CO2). Gas leaks in cooling towers represent a potential climate hazard. So does the air condition in your car.
I'm sorry for the long post, but I felt it was necessary. Please vote for politicians who have the balls to do something about the climate change!
By the way, here in Norway gasoline costs about $8.50 per gallon at the moment. We could probably double that price without breaking too many eggs.
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Actually, the Tiga forest in northern Russia produces 30% of the worlds oxygen, while the Amazon Rain forest produces only 20%. The average American household produces 20 tons of C02 each year. A large tree can take 2000-5000 pounds out per year. If each American household planted 5-10 trees, in about 10 or so years, it could actually make a large difference.
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WTF? I find that very hard to believe. If the sun didn't have trees to hit, it would hit vegetation beneath instead, which would basically capture the same amount of heat.
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Time Magazine said that trees take in more heat in the north and make things worse. Don't know if that's true, but Time did say it.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
An Inconvenient Truth
My $0.02: Regardless of whether our environment needs us to do anything differently . . . being more energy efficient makes micro-economic sense. Spending less energy means spending less money. Fixing your leaky faucet may cost you $20 this month, but it'll save you money in the long run. We can create similar efficiencies elsewhere.
The problem is it doesn't make macro-economic sense. If we spend more and more money on oil each year, it artificially raises our measures of economic growth because we're spending more money. For some reason our measures of economic growth are linked to spending money. If someone gets sick and it costs $80k, that's really good for the economy. 5mpg SUVs are better for the economy than 50mpg cars. The government (having control over the macro-economic policies) has little reason to encourage bad-for-growth policies. Big-business, providing most of the rest of our growth, also acts towards macro growth.
This means that any push for energy reform will inherently fail if left up to big-business and government policies unless we change growth metrics themselves (doubtful). We need bottom-up reform on this issue. We need a meme change towards energy efficiency. It isn't looking hopeful but mass-marketing the idea of global warming may be a way to get it moving along. I'm not sure I like it, I'm not sure it's right, but it seems to be doing the job to get the masses moving in one direction.
Economies grow when people spend money, plain and simple. However, if you spend less on gasoline than you are free to spend more money elsewhere. If gasoline/diesel costs less than the cost to move things over a distance also drops, which leads to lower prices.
Because of this dissonance, we cannot rely on our government policies and big-business offerings to provide energy efficiency . . . especially when they have a marketing machine working to solidify the American Energy Dream (read SUVs, air conditioning, I could go on). The solution to this is to counter-market, or even guerrilla-market against this meme. I think raising awareness of 'global warming' where caused by humans or not, is an OK start.
When I buy stock I spend money to own a piece of a company hoping that I can later resell that piece at a profit. When I buy lunch I invest a portion of my money into a local business and in exchange I get a commodity that will quickly go bad if I do not eat it, freeze it or resell it.
Just because the lunch has a short lifespan of value does not mean it is not a form of investing. That lunch may have been made with some very rare herbs and spices and I may know of a buyer who would like that lunch but he is unable to get to the place of purchase. Being the entrepreneur that I am I buy the lunch and then resell it to him at a substantial markup.
Even stocks can go bad. MCI anyone?
Think of Monopoly. Sure, it's a broken game, Scrym hate it, blahbitty-blah-blah-blah, but it's an excellent example of why pure Keynsianism is faulted. If you spend all of your fiat money in the game, then when you have to pay rent, you are forced to a) lose, or b) mortgage a property. When you mortgage, you can no longer collect rent. To complete the syllogism, spending, therefore, does not equal investment; in fact, it can lead to the polar opposite result as investment.
And just because investment has risk doesn't negate my statement. Spending, period, has risk. But whereas spending purely to consume does not generate new revenue, investing does. If all I do is eat apples, then only the orchard owner gets rich. If I eat one apple and plant the seeds from another, then more apple trees grow, which allows more people to enter the market and lowers the price of apples through competition so more people can consume them.
I hate when people say spending drives the economy.
GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports − imports)
I'd be interested to know how much each of those parts are (in America). If investment really a huge part of the equation, then how much of it is contributed at the micro consumer level, and how much at the macro big-business level? As I mentioned, I couldn't find anything.
However, I can say that this is a succinct and accurate summary of US commerce figures regarding the role of small businesses (less than 100 employees) and their contribution to GDP.
I just bought a new car (picking it up on Saturday), and it seemed to me that fuel economy hasn't gotten much better in 10 or 15 years. The cars I looked at got 30-35 mpg on the highway. That was true when I looked at cars a many years ago. I guess the difference is that the engines are more powerful. Now it's very rare to see an engine with less than 100 hp. Even the Honda Fit and the Toyota Yaris have 109 or so. So it seems that everything has about 20 more horsepower and slightly better efficiency. The net result is that the cars get the same mileage.
For example, the current Honda Accord the exact same mileage as my long-gone 1986 Honda Accord. Of course the new car is much heavier and has a more powerful engine. One thing to consider is that all of that safety gear really adds to the weight. We've basically legislated cars that are less fuel efficient. Of course more lives get saved.
Now if they'd just bring over some of those European diesels, I'd be really happy. Diesel technology has come a long way.
In terms of the Diesel cars . . . we can get a lot of the VW and Audi diesels in the states. The VW TDIs are amazing and I'm seriously considering getting one. The thing about gas mileage is you can get it, you just need a more complicated engine. You had a good turbo and tuned supercharge to an engine, and believe it or not, it's more efficient.