Global warming news you don't hear about

I just find it amusing that people think we puny humans can have any major effect on the environment

The world is huge people. H-U-G-E

and it has gone through far more dramatic changes in the past without the "aid" of humans. Who is to say that it can't happen again?

I don't know if global warming is actually happening, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. What I do know is that we probably didn't cause it (as history has shown the earth does this sort of thing on a REGULAR BASIS) and therefore we can't stop it

I agree with ainwood's tilt of the earth's axis concept. What makes us humans so arrogant as to challenge the cosmos?

ori said:

Well actually it is against the Bible

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One man's opinion that wasn't backed by scripture isn't a good indicator of biblical opinion.

Nylan said:

I just find it amusing that people think we puny humans can have any major effect on the environment

The world is huge people. H-U-G-E

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Yes, but we're also a significant factor in the planet. Realise that each point of light here represents a nearly-constant source of CO2 output. As well, realise that lighting is only a small portion of our fossil fuel consumption.

Look how much of the globe is affected by our lighting, alone!

*ahem*
I am going to structure this post very carefully so there is no unnecessary flaming. If you reply to it, please ensure that you have read the entire post first and have understood it.

First off, before I say anything else, I will make these undeniable and fully accepted points:

1.Global warming is happening (it is, regardless of what things are responsible).
2.Pollution, such as CO2, sulphur dioxide and particulates, are terrible for humans and the environment, regardless of their effect on global warming.

And now I shall delve into the various theories about the reasons for global warming:

Theory 1: Greenhouse gases
Main points: Global warming is caused by the build up of greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and sulphur dioxide, produced by human industrial, transport and other activity, in the atmosphere. These gases trap heat from the sun on earth, thus heating up the planet.
Points for: Noticeable global warming began at around 1800AD, when industrialisation began. It has increased at around the same rate as pollution has.
Points against:There is no fool-proof scientific proof for this theory that confirms it beyond reasonable doubt.
There is even a theory (possible, though unlikely) that this theory is used by developed nations to prevent others developing and industrialising too fast. (Considering the rather puny effort being made to reduce CO2 emmissions, it seems possible...)

Theory 2:Natural cycles
Main points: The current trend of global warming is just part of the natural cycle of earth, which heats up and cools down over periods of several thousand years.
Points for:Geological, archaeological and other evidence has proven that this has happened before and could happen again.
Points against: Few, other than that there is no rock-solid proof for it.

And so there we are. Personally I'm not sure which is right (or if there is another I've missed out completely), but regardless we ought to cut down pollution.

Well, TBoy, sorry to bust your bubble, but Theory one has a mechanicsm that explains the warming, while Theory two is pretty nude in that department

carlosMM said:

Luckily, this is not correct. Want an example?

Würth solar has started makin tons of money with solar cells.

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This does not mean that solar energy can (currently) solve our electricity problems. But if I hear that a company in a HIGHLY subsidized industry makes tons of money I have only one thing to say: Reduce subsidies

carlosMM said:

Along the German Autobahn, planting a 100m wide strip of plants that produce high biogas amounts when fermented could save the money paid as subsidies to the farmers that now grow and raise stuff we do not need, while at the same time providing enough gas to all of Germany's automobiles (including trucks) AND making our economy a bit less dependent on imports of fossil fuels. It may end up cost neutral, or even a profit.

And so on......

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carlosMM said:

I saw something on TV recently (SAT1? IIRC). They did cite several proper studies, and I talked to a guy who reviewed one of the studies (ain't conventions nice?). It seemed pretty real, except for the typical German problem: the natural gas must fulfill a norm, and that norm is not a minimum norm, but actually gives a range. And biogas is usually above it. So the farmers are not allowed to feed it into the natural gas networks.

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While bio fuels are neat this just does not add up - want some numbers? You get them anyway

The best bio fuel crop yields currently are at about 5 t/ha. (for one source that gives lower yields though...)

now for the calculations I'll use km² so:

1 km² = 100 ha

which gives a bio fuel yield of 500 t/km²

In 2005 Germany used 53 million t of fossil fuel and 2.2 million t of bio fuels (German language link), i.e. we need to get another 53 million t of bio fuels:

at 500 t/km² we need:

> 100 000 km² of land provided the best crops are used (mainly palm trees that don't grow in Germany actually ) and there is a perfect harvest every year. Now to the Autobahn:

We have 12000 km of autobahn using a 0.1 km strip at its side we have 1200 km² of land - a little more than 1% of the land we need if we have perfect conditions... So even though Sat1 showed this it is a fairy tale I am sorry to say...

For comparison:

the total land area used for agriculture in Germany currently is 170 000 km² - German Bureu of Statistics so if we do not hope for perfect crops and yields we need to convert ALL our agriculture to fuel crops and cease to produce any food at all with the currently available crops...

ori said:

So even though Sat1 showed this it is a fairy tale I am sorry to say...

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I like this part... You thought any better of Sat1?

(For non-germans: Sat1 is a private TV channel which is not really known for it's deep analysis)

Global warming is caused by the build up of greenhouse gases, such as CO2... These gases trap heat from the sun on earth, thus heating up the planet...

There is no fool-proof scientific proof for this theory that confirms it beyond reasonable doubt

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bullfeathers.

There is incontrovertible proof that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. It can be proven in any undergraduate chemistry lab. I've done it myself.

So, yes, there is "fool-proof proof" that if you put CO2 into the atmosphere, the earth will get warmer.

Pontiuth Pilate said:

bullfeathers.

There is incontrovertible proof that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. It can be proven in any undergraduate chemistry lab. I've done it myself.

So, yes, there is "fool-proof proof" that if you put CO2 into the atmosphere, the earth will get warmer.

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And the physics behind is known since almost 80 years, right after the formulation of quantum physics. It's 100% standard physics, that every undergraduate physics students learns (or at least should learn) in his atomic/molecular physics course.

carlosMM said:

Well, TBoy, sorry to bust your bubble, but Theory one has a mechanicsm that explains the warming, while Theory two is pretty nude in that department

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Yep, it must be some kind of magic. That is an important point repeated countless times in these threads and always ignored by denialists. But then many people dont know/care about the scientific proverty of denialism discourse, mostly based in something like: 99% scientifics say A is correct, 1 % says B is correct ----> there is not consensus----> B is correct. That makes these threads boring.

Urederra said:

Do you believe the 6 meters sea level rise in the next century that Gore claims?

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No. Why bring it up? Did I?

Can you prove it? What do scientists like Fred Singer say about that?

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What does a hurricane do when it passes over warmer seawater?

Uhm, I'll see your scientist and raise it by 2,500?

Thorgalaeg said:

Yep, it must be some kind of magic. That is an important point repeated countless times in these threads and always ignored by denialists. But then many people dont know/care about the scientific proverty of denialism discourse, mostly based in something like: 99% scientifics say A is correct, 1 % says B is correct ----> there is not consensus----> B is correct. That makes these threads boring.

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I agree, it boggles the mind. You would have to make the claim: scientist are full of it, all of them. That's why I think I'm 99% sure GW is bunk. Not drag another scientist into it and use that scientist as 'proof'.

ori said:

While bio fuels are neat this just does not add up - want some numbers? You get them anyway

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Note that I wrote bioGAS, not FUEL.....

carlosMM said:

Note that I wrote bioGAS, not FUEL.....

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Well that makes a hell of a difference so now lets recalculate:

the best yield I could find in google is 10000 m³/ha Source (german) - 1 m³ is equivalent to about 1.5 l of Diesel fuel which is about 1.3 kg of fuel equivalent (acutally 1 m³ = 1.2 kg bio gas, 1 kg bio gas is equivalent to 1.3 l diesel and 1 l diesel is 0.85 kg diesel)

This means we have 1 million m³ or 1.3 million kg (1300 t) per km² which you are right is much better and we need only about 41000 km² when having perfect yields to arrive at germanys current need for fuel. That means we would only have to convert about 25-35% of our agricultural land to bio gas production instead of 100% for the bio fuels - but it is still much more than the 1200 km² proposed by the people you cited

And this of course does not yet take into account that we will need bio gas in order to produce electricity when we got rid of our nuclear power in ten years

ori said:

Well that makes a hell of a difference so now lets recalculate:

the best yield I could find in google is 10000 m³/ha Source (german) - 1 m³ is equivalent to about 1.5 l of Diesel fuel which is about 1.3 kg of fuel equivalent (acutally 1 m³ = 1.2 kg bio gas, 1 kg bio gas is equivalent to 1.3 l diesel and 1 l diesel is 0.85 kg diesel)

This means we have 1 million m³ or 1.3 million kg (1300 t) per km² which you are right is much better and we need only about 41000 km² when having perfect yields to arrive at germanys current need for fuel. That means we would only have to convert about 25-35% of our agricultural land to bio gas production instead of 100% for the bio fuels - but it is still much more than the 1200 km² proposed by the people you cited

And this of course does not yet take into account that we will need bio gas in order to produce electricity when we got rid of our nuclear power in ten years

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Well, I heard different numbers, dropping the percentage to under 15%, but that's a moot point: we can easily convert some 20% with no ill effects on food productions - we just drop the excess. Let's just hope things do develop into this direction.

You could also just use the agricultural waste that occurs around the food production. I don't know your major crops, but I'm sure that a lot of cellulose waste is produce (what's currently done with that waste?)

Converting to biofuels is not supposed to eliminate the need for fossil fuels, merely reduce the consumption

carlosMM said:

Well, I heard different numbers, dropping the percentage to under 15%, but that's a moot point: we can easily convert some 20% with no ill effects on food productions - we just drop the excess. Let's just hope things do develop into this direction.

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The point I was contending was the claim you cited that we could replace all fossil fuel by using <0.7% of our agricultural land - if that was the case fossil fuel would be out of business by now...

I do not oppose the use of bio fuels/bio gas to reduce consumption of fossil fuels but we will not be able to replace all of it using bio fuels

carlosMM said:

....we can easily convert some 20% with no ill effects on food productions - we just drop the excess. Let's just hope things do develop into this direction.

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You throw that out like it's a small thing. Reassigning 20% of the entire agricultural output of a nation will have major ramifications in the price of every agricultural product. It will also create major disruptions in an otherwise stable market, and will probably have unintended consequences as well. Take, for example, that Mexico is having a huge problem with (corn) tortilla price inflation, which is caused by some U.S. growers shifting production from food corn to ethanol production.

I'll say it again; people in the US need to scream and shout about corn being used for ethanol. It's a heavily subsidised industry (i.e., NOT free market) AND corn ethanol is not nearly the most efficient source.

Veritass said:

You throw that out like it's a small thing. Reassigning 20% of the entire agricultural output of a nation will have major ramifications in the price of every agricultural product. It will also create major disruptions in an otherwise stable market, and will probably have unintended consequences as well. Take, for example, that Mexico is having a huge problem with (corn) tortilla price inflation, which is caused by some U.S. growers shifting production from food corn to ethanol production.

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No need to lecture me - I know very well that it is not done by waving hands. In fact, it would be the end of subsidies, which would have the additional benefit of saving the farmers in Africa from EU imports that dump prizes there.

Additionally, the net effect of massive climate change is far worse.

carlosMM said:

No need to lecture me - I know very well that it is not done by waving hands. In fact, it would be the end of subsidies, which would have the additional benefit of saving the farmers in Africa from EU imports that dump prizes there.

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With all due respect, I don't really trust the Eu to act in any interests but their own. Their 'food miles' propaganda is a fairly blatant example of the misinformation they are spreading to continue their protectionist ways.

But if they did stop dumping surpluses on the third world, I would be somewhat impressed. The problem is that they sure as hell won't import from the third world, which is the other half of the problem.