Pollution Info!

[Sparrowhawk]

Setsuna:

We're also told that the global average temperature has gone up in the last century. Now do we know this? We didn't have the technology or the desire to go around measuring worldwide temperatures in 1901, so how can anyone say with certainty that there's ANY sustained trend up OR down in world temperatures? In any case, we've just come out of a mini ice-age that occurred in the middle ages. When you come out of an ice age, do you expect temperatures to go up or down?

Well for starters, it was Europe that went through a mini ice-age, not the whole world, so the whole world's temp shouldn't be expected to go up. Secondly, we can measure how the temperature is changing by what effects it has on the landscape. Very detailed observations have been made by geologists of the sizes of glaciers, going back well over 100 years. In the last 30 years alone, many glaciers, such as Mt. Kenya's, have shrunk by as much as 30-50%.

Your only hope is to buy my Kyoto Miracle Environmental Youth Elixir!"

So the Kyoto accord isn't perfect. Yes it should include developing countries like India and China. But that does not mean that it wasn't a good idea. Lowering emissions in America and the developed world would be a good start, and certainly better than pretending there isn't a problem.

For many years, we've been told the rainforests (AKA Jungles) are "vanishing" at some ridiculous rate, but they're still there, and not much smaller than they were before. (The truth: Jungles grow back faster than humans have been cutting them down.)

Quite frankly, this is false. The rainforests are shrinking rapidly, and are not being given any chance to regrow. Scrub land where pasture used to be does not constitute regrowth of the jungle.

Now let's put this in perspective. All the greenhouse gasses generated by the sum total of all human activities for an entire year fall short of the total generation of the same gasses generated by the volcanic activity on Earth in a single day, even a day that isn't particularly active.

No. I don't know where this information comes from, but on a daily basis volcanic activity accounts for very little greenhouse gas. Admittedly, large volcanic eruptions put out huge amounts of greenhouse gas, but they do not happen very often. The point is, we create enormous amounts of greenhouse gases in excess of what the planet already does. This extra amount is enough to push things over the edge.


I'm afraid I can't close my argument any better than Ilspana did a few posts back:

Does anyone else notice how the people who say environmentalists dont know what they're talking about, know nothing about the atmosphere/geology/pollution themselves? The only thing they know is what their corrupt politicians tell them about how small scale the pollution would be in comparison to other disasters that have and could occur... its sad really... that people are willing to beleive that without doing the research. just to spare their peace of mind.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by Ilspana
You can debate the greenhouse effect, i'll give you that much, but you cannot deny the effects of industrial wastedumps (at least when they're poorly run/utilized.)

...while there may not be a greenhouse effect, there is pollution and it does have an effect on the population it is located near. (however small it might seem for those of you who dont live in polluted areas. Which is a pretty small ratio, considering there arent many inland bodies of water that dont have at least a small bit of pollution in them, other than resevoirs)

I very much agree. While it might be extremely doubtful if there is "global warming", I say lets clean the place up, for our own sake. It's so much nicer to live in a clean place. The contrast in Europe is remarkable, from Greece (extremely dirty) to Schwitzerland (extremely clean) for instance. I'd prefer ten times the clean environment of Schwitzerland or Scandinavia, than the dirt or Greece or Turkey. Sadly, Schwitzerland and Scandinavia are also about the most expensive countries in Europe, regarding taxes and prices. And that something I'd prefer was a little different.

Hmmm. I wonder if that strategy book said anything about how global warming is implemented this time around?

An atomic winter could have been a really cool ending to the game. Or a meteor hitting and wiping everybody out.

Btw, pollution is not a solely modern phenomenon. Ancient and medieval cities could be extremely unhealthy. Without public sanitation, people threw their garbage and **** on the streets. Why do you guys think the black death so easily wiped out 1/3 of the population of Europe? -Answer : a bad environmental policy...

 

[Ilspana]

Originally posted by Sparrowhawk

I'm afraid I can't close my argument any better than Ilspana did a few posts back:

Wow! Its not often someone can say that

*looks out the window for the four horseman.*

 

[Setsuna]

Originally posted by Ilspana
:crazyeyes
Pollution goes way past just gas emmitions. What about oils spills, and chemical plants diliberately pouring their byproducts into river systems? I suppose the rise in cancer rates in communities whos water supply is dangerously close to such chemical dumps is just a coincidence.

You can debate the greenhouse effect, i'll give you that much, but you cannot deny the effects of industrial wastedumps (at least when they're poorly run/utilized.)

I'll just close by saying while there may not be a greenhouse effect, there is pollution and it does have an effect on the population it is located near. (however small it might seem for those of you who dont live in polluted areas. Which is a pretty small ratio, considering there arent many inland bodies of water that dont have at least a small bit of pollution in them, other than resevoirs)

But that wasn't my point, was it? Pollution is a given in real life and in Civ III. Global Warming isn't. A mild annoyance to a big problem I can live with in a game, and expect of real life. But not a game/world ending disaster based on faulty and specious science.

Although I guess if Civilization was meant to be realistic, it would be more like those accurate-to-the-point-of-bland-gameplay Koei simulations..

"Gee, Cleo, you look great for 5000."

I never said there are no evil companies whom are whistling innocently while pouring muck into our local lakes and ponds.

Well for starters, it was Europe that went through a mini ice-age, not the whole world, so the whole world's temp shouldn't be expected to go up. Secondly, we can measure how the temperature is changing by what effects it has on the landscape. Very detailed observations have been made by geologists of the sizes of glaciers, going back well over 100 years. In the last 30 years alone, many glaciers, such as Mt. Kenya's, have shrunk by as much as 30-50%.

That could mean anything.

So the Kyoto accord isn't perfect. Yes it should include developing countries like India and China. But that does not mean that it wasn't a good idea. Lowering emissions in America and the developed world would be a good start, and certainly better than pretending there isn't a problem.

Should have but didn't, did it?

It meant well, I'll give it that. But not much else. It would have completely derailed the U.S. economy, while leaving Europe and Japan free to overtake the U.S.

Hmm, a maybe, or a given, a maybe, or a given.. that's a tough one.

Quite frankly, this is false. The rainforests are shrinking rapidly, and are not being given any chance to regrow. Scrub land where pasture used to be does not constitute regrowth of the jungle.

Or so you say.

No. I don't know where this information comes from, but on a daily basis volcanic activity accounts for very little greenhouse gas. Admittedly, large volcanic eruptions put out huge amounts of greenhouse gas, but they do not happen very often. The point is, we create enormous amounts of greenhouse gases in excess of what the planet already does. This extra amount is enough to push things over the edge.

According to various reports riddled with faulty information that amount to scare stories. Untrue.

Here's another interesting tidbit:

Scientists also point out that nature produces far more greenhouse gases than we do. For example, when the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, within just a few hours it had thrown into the atmosphere 30 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide - almost twice as much as all the factories, power plants and cars in the United States do in a whole year. Oceans emit 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, every year. Decaying plants throw up another 90 billion tonnes, compared to just six billion tonnes a year from humans. What's more, 100 million years ago, there was six times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is now, yet the temperature then was marginally cooler than it is today. Many scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide doesn't even affect climate.

Whee.

I'm afraid I can't close my argument any better than Ilspana did a few posts back:

Better luck next time.

Does anyone else notice how the people who say environmentalists dont know what they're talking about, know nothing about the atmosphere/geology/pollution themselves? The only thing they know is what their corrupt politicians tell them about how small scale the pollution would be in comparison to other disasters that have and could occur... its sad really... that people are willing to beleive that without doing the research. just to spare their peace of mind.

Ah, such a noble cause.

Sorry, no matter how much you try to romanticise environmentalism, the fact remains that it is now an iron fisted ideology. The only corrupt politicians telling me what to think are on YOUR side, if I recall. Environmentalism may have started out differently but now it is a bloated force of pure evil. Well, maybe not that bad, but it's still the overbearing political movement of today.
Remember the saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." (And let's not get into the religious connotations, it carries a secular meaning too!)

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Setsuna:

OK, you've said your piece and I've said mine. I still disagree with you and could argue for hours. I'd prefer to agree to disagree. Maybe we won some converts either way with our arguments.



I do think that it's rediculous that large-scale nuclear war in civ causes global warming though... IMO normal pollution should, but nukes should actually counteract that with nuclear winter.

 

[Mikeweather]

"Scientists also point out that nature produces far more greenhouse gases than we do. For example, when the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, within just a few hours it had thrown into the atmosphere 30 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide - almost twice as much as all the factories, power plants and cars in the United States do in a whole year."

Imagine if that volcano erupted every year like we pollute every year... Not to mention Volcanos do NOT increase global temperature, they lower it. While they do release a lot of greenhouse gasses they also produce a LOT of ash, which cools the plante. One year in the 1800's there were multiple, large volcanos erupting. Winter didn't end till JULY that year.

"Oceans emit 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, every year.
Decaying plants throw up another 90 billion tonnes, compared to just six billion tonnes a year from humans."

Oceans also CONSUME the CO2 they put out, and the living plants take in the CO2 produced by the decaying plants.

"What's more, 100 million years ago, there was six times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is now, yet the temperature then was marginally cooler than it is today. Many scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide doesn't even affect climate."

Many other scientists also realize that the increased volcano activity 100 million years ago contributed to keeping the temperature down.

But really, CO2 isn't the problem, that's what was wrong with the Kyoto treaty. CO2 is generaly gone within a few years, other gasses can persist for decades and have a much greater warming effect thanan equal ammount of CO2. We nead a treaty to reduce sulfur dioxide, methane etc. CO2 is the least of our problems.

 

[LeSphinx]

It's great to have some informations from the official strategy book.

The way of getting in war seams to be very realist!

LeSphinx

 

[Pggar]

Originally posted by LeSphinx
It's great to have some informations from the official strategy book.

The way of getting in war seams to be very realist!

LeSphinx

What way?
By endless arguments over environmentalism?
(Open a thread OT, i wouldn't mind going there)

Can we get back to the topic now, please?

 

[ArcticWolf]

What was the topic again? After reading few pages about global warming, I think I lost it..oh well. I think that if the global warming is true, neither you or me will see it, nor our children, or their grandchildren. And when they have grandchildren, someone who has been playing civ3 too much has already conquered the world in a huge nuclear war.

and oh yeah, I live in Finland, and I have to say that only Canada and Russia can compete with Finland in the amount of forests...and maybe Brazil...

 

[CurtSibling]

Jeepers!

I can see this becoming like "Best CIV" thread...

Only more boring!!!

You guys need Fayadi to liven things up!

He'd say:
"CHINA not pollute, USA invent pollution!!!"

Only kidding Fayadi!

 

[Alc0p0pz]

hmm, Iron Works: 4?

does this mean we'll have pollution from early history onwards?

No.

The Iron Werkz small wonder requires a city to have iron (iron working) and coal (steam power) in it's city radius.

Ergo, the earliest the 'Werkz could ever be built is at the beginning of the Industrial Age.

btw.

Does anyone know exactly what the Mass Transit System and Recycling Centre do? As far as I can tell, the MTS reduces pollution from population to exactly one, regardless of the city size.

 

[Tassadar]

With masstransit and recyling you bring down polution to maximum 2 per city. about iron work, i built it on an island without thinking a wonder can produce pollution, so i got the 4 pollution skull and i had to sent 7-8 worker just to handle this city pollution.

 

[ZemiGod]

The path for global warming is jungle/forest-grassland-plains-desert-tundra. Notice the last stage of warming is TUNDRA not DESERT. The global cooling theory is in fact correct! IF global warming does occur, water will basically cover the globe. This will slowly result in another ice age. There is absolutely no solid proof as of now that global warming WILL occur, but that doesn't mean industry can pollute the world care-free

 

[ZemiGod]

Originally posted by Setsuna


Scientists also point out that nature produces far more greenhouse gases than we do. For example, when the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, within just a few hours it had thrown into the atmosphere 30 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide - almost twice as much as all the factories, power plants and cars in the United States do in a whole year. Oceans emit 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, every year. Decaying plants throw up another 90 billion tonnes, compared to just six billion tonnes a year from humans. What's more, 100 million years ago, there was six times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is now, yet the temperature then was marginally cooler than it is today. Many scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide doesn't even affect climate.

Let's say Setsuna that there are 500 billion tons of greenhouse gases being produced every year. Now let's also say that this has already been happening for the past 2 billion years of existence. This means that these 500 billion tons are *somehow* not doing anything. Why? Because the Earth is in perfect balance. It doesn't matter if you have a 100 billion population of wolves, if you have a 400 billion population of deer everything will be all fine and balanced, just enough to keep everything in order. Now if you add, let's say, "only" 2 billion more wolves, everything will be thrown out of balance. It doesn't matter how much the environment is producing, because that same environment is cleaning itself. But what we are producing, we aren't cleaning.

 

[Nemo]

do the squares only change for the nation in which the pollution that cuased the change is from? i.e. if I am in ancient times, and have no pollution, and my neighbor is in modern times and has a large pollution output. When the earth warms up, and tiles change, will they only change for my neighbor, or for either of us?

I am asking becuase I was wondering if I lower my pollution causing iitems, and the AI does not, will I still be effected by the AI's pollution? If so, how is this prevented/reduces overall?

 

[Tassadar]

In one of my game global warning occur and my tile begin to change, my city was producing lots of shield but i use every city improve to reduce pollution. So i saw that the pollution was coming from an A.I.( i send explorer and find lot of polluted tile into a.i.teritory. So i declare war on him bomb his biggest city to destroy factory and coal plant and eventually destroy this civilisation. It was an environnementalism war