42 replies to this topic

[Doug1o29]

and then, on 05 April 2012 - 04:24 PM, said:

We have no other real alternatives that can meet the current needs we have demanded.  Solar, wind and bio cannot meet them.  Nuclear will never be accepted on the scale it would be needed.  Carbon fuels are all we have and we will have to choose comfort, growth and overall lifestyle being seriously diminished or accepting the ravages that carbon causes.  My guess is that we will do nothing until it is forced on us by a calamity.  It's just human nature.

Solar and wind can probably meet most of the need, but it will take a major conversion effort to get us there.  Wind and solar cannot produce base load - the minimum power needed to keep the system running at night when the wind's not blowing.  But nuclear can.  Fast breeders can re-use waste from old thermal plants, producing products with much shorter half-lives (300 yrs. vs. 5000 yrs.); that will cut down on the storage problem.  AND, Uncle Sam has enough to supply the US with power for the next thousand years.  Not to mention the $50 billion that would go to the US treasury.  New reactor designs eliminate many of the safety problems of the older designs.  Could we have a Chernobyl-style release from one?  The experts say no, but they also said a long list of other plants were safe, too.  At any rate, I don't think there's a choice - we have to go nuclear, sit in the cold, or destroy our life-support system.

Bio-fuels?  Right now, they're not efficient enough to be practical except in limited local situations - corn oil diesel in a corn-growing area, or crude from turkey processing waste.  There may be hope for cellulose-based alcohol, but that needs more research.  Grain is needed for food, so using good farmland to produce alcohol doesn't make much sense.

The problem with waiting for a disaster is that by then, we may not be able to fix the system.
Doug

[OverSword]

questionmark, on 05 April 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Taken in isolation that would be the correct argument, but that article is not unique. We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas (which means that it stops heat from radiating back into space), we know that in times when all the carbon that is (was) safely tucked somewhere under the earth was out in the air the temperatures on this planet were way higher and by paleontological record much more extreme. We know that since all that carbon was sequestered the temperatures on this planet have been more moderate (to sometimes right out freezing). The only real variable in all the cases was carbon. So why would anybody suppose that if you blow all that sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere nothing would happen to the climate?

That is the real question here.

As I understand it the real question was which came first the heat or the c02.  There are studies with opposite findings.  Nobody should be blamed for deciding that they believe that the answer is really unknown.

[Doug1o29]

questionmark, on 05 April 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

I don't remember anybody saying to stop dead on using fossil fuels, all Kyoto and similar initiatives demanded is to reduce where it is not necessary, like invest in insulation, not drive 400 yards with the car to get a pack of cigarettes and there were possible substitute for regenerative energies. Not to heat up the interior to 105 in winter and cool it down to 20 in summer. But even that seems to be too much for some.

While conservation has a part to play, it is no substitute.  Carbon has a tenure in the atmosphere of at least a century, some say two or even three centuries and there's one estimate of a thousand years - nobody is exactly sure.  It makes little difference whether we burn it now, or burn it next year, in the end, it won't matter much.  To avoid disaster, we have to leave a lot of coal, gas and tar sand and maybe some oil, too, in the ground.
Doug

[Alienated Being]

OverSword, on 05 April 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

To latch on to this or any study, given how this whole thing has gone over the years, and say "SEE THIS PROVES IT ONCE AND FOR ALL" is just......  

I couldn't agree more. I really don't know, but I don't see man-made global warming as a logical suggestion as-to why our planet is increasing in temperature.

[Doug1o29]

OverSword, on 05 April 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

As I understand it the real question was which came first the heat or the c02.  There are studies with opposite findings.  Nobody should be blamed for deciding that they believe that the answer is really unknown.

Both are right.  Operating without human interference, the climate system responds to warming, not the other way around.  First the temperature goes up, then the oceans warm up.  Because warm water can hold less dissolved CO2 than cold water, they release CO2 to the atmosphere.  It takes several hundred years for this to happen.

But, enter people:  we produce a major pulse of CO2 (21% of the CO2 now in the air has been put there since 1960.), that warms the atmosphere, which warms the oceans, which release more CO2, which warms the air...  If it were only CO2, the effect would fizzle out after a few degrees, but warmer oceans melt and release methane hydrate which then adds to the greenhouse effect.  We could well trigger a runaway greenhouse effect from which we couldn't recover.
Doug

[Doug1o29]

Alienated Being, on 05 April 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

I couldn't agree more. I really don't know, but I don't see man-made global warming as a logical suggestion as-to why our planet is increasing in temperature.

Read "Storms of My Grandchildren" by James Hansen, available on Amazon.  He goes into the science and the politics.
Doug

[JayMark]

Alienated Being, on 05 April 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

Secondly, the earth cooled, and went into an ice age. After the ice age, it began warming again. According to Vostok data, our temperatures really haven't increased very substantially.

That graphic is no where near an indicator that we are not responsible of current global warming. If you look at it, you can see that the CO₂ concentration has increased as a result of temperature changes. Now if you look at the same kind of graphic but in reference to the current warming, you will see that this time, the CO₂ concentration went up first and then, temperature raised as a result of it.

Quote

CO2 emissions may have increased, but that doesn't indicate that it is the cause of our warming.

Wrong. Here is a nice picture.



So there you have it all. Now if you tell me that you still can't see how CO₂ is the main cause of global warming, it would be implying that the shown data is wrong. If that is what you think, then tell me where and how it is wrong.

[Alienated Being]

JayMark, on 05 April 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

So there you have it all. Now if you tell me that you still can't see how CO₂ is the main cause of global warming, it would be implying that the shown data is wrong. If that is what you think, then tell me where and how it is wrong.

I don't see how CO2 is the "main cause" of our warming, honestly. All I see is how CO2 has increased as the result of human activity, which, of course, is common-sensical. I see no direct, irrefutable correlation between CO2 and our current temperature increase, especially, as I have said, considering it has increased/decreased so many times before.

Edited by Alienated Being, 05 April 2012 - 07:23 PM.

[questionmark]

Doug1o29, on 05 April 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

While conservation has a part to play, it is no substitute.  Carbon has a tenure in the atmosphere of at least a century, some say two or even three centuries and there's one estimate of a thousand years - nobody is exactly sure.  It makes little difference whether we burn it now, or burn it next year, in the end, it won't matter much.  To avoid disaster, we have to leave a lot of coal, gas and tar sand and maybe some oil, too, in the ground.
Doug

That is delusional, at least for the next 10 years down the road. Unless somebody invents a safe portable energy source conservation is the only thing we have. The other alternative is to tear down the big cities and go to live in the countryside... which would mean we have no place to grow our food. Which is also the problem if we try to grow our fuel. We will have to live with 4-5 degrees more whether we like it or not. And we don't only have to leave lots of carbon in the ground, most probably, if we want the same climate that made humanity possible in the first place we will have to put a lot of carbon back underground (which will most probably be done after the good old formula: Lets privatize the earnings and socialize the losses).

[JayMark]

Alienated Being, on 05 April 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

I don't see how CO2 is the "main cause" of our warming, honestly. All I see is how CO2 has increased as the result of human activity, which, of course, is common-sensical. I see no direct, irrefutable correlation between CO2 and our current temperature increase, especially, as I have said, considering it has increased/decreased so many times before.

Well that's exactly my point. If by this simple picture you can't see it, it suggests that you don't even understand the basic physics behind it (no harm intended).

The term "radiative forcing" is designated to represent the capacity of our atmosphere to trap energy/heat (in simple terms). The higher it is, the more heat it will trap. Period.

As you can see, of all the elements that have added forcing to the atmosphere, anthropogenic CO₂ is by far the most important. It is more that the total forcing added by methane, nitrous oxide, halocarbons (CFC, HCFC etc) and even tropospheric ozone all resulting from our activity. Proof right there that anthropogenic CO₂ is the main drive (but not the only one of course).

Our activity also resulted in some negative forcing (blue bands) but only by about 1.6 W/m². So the total net added forcing (positive forcing minus negative forcing so about 3.2 W/m² minus 1.6 W/m²) is still of about 1.6 W/m² which inevitably means we are warming up.

An easier way is to look at it like so: red bands mean positive forcing, blue ones mean negative forcing. The largest red band is that of CO₂. So it is the main drive and it's antropogenic. Easy enough?

So in conclusion:

- Global temperature is rising.
- The main cause of the radiative forcing increase is from anthropogenic CO₂.
- We are the main cause of current global warming.

Now if you still don't want to understand, I feel that it is only going to be because you want to be right and refuse to see the facts.

Peace.

Edited by JayMark, 05 April 2012 - 08:48 PM.

[Doug1o29]

questionmark, on 05 April 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

That is delusional, at least for the next 10 years down the road. Unless somebody invents a safe portable energy source conservation is the only thing we have. The other alternative is to tear down the big cities and go to live in the countryside... which would mean we have no place to grow our food. Which is also the problem if we try to grow our fuel. We will have to live with 4-5 degrees more whether we like it or not. And we don't only have to leave lots of carbon in the ground, most probably, if we want the same climate that made humanity possible in the first place we will have to put a lot of carbon back underground (which will most probably be done after the good old formula: Lets privatize the earnings and socialize the losses).

I'm not saying "Don't conserve."  I'm saying that unless we do a lot more, conservation will not be enough.  And if ten years is our planning horizon, why bother?  The system should still be working in 2022.  Personally, I'm planning to be around yet in 2040.  And my kids may still be around in 2070.

One way to get more carbon in the ground is to bury it.  People are talking about growing plants just to bury them in the ground and sequester the carbon.  We are already doing that - with paper.  When it doesn't make sense to recycle paper (The nearest paper mill to Denver is in Snowflake, Arizona.), just bury it and sequester the carbon.  Better yet, use it for fuel to replace some of that oil.  The average city could generate 5% of its power from the trash it throws away.  St. Louis is actually doing it.  Put some good scrubbers on the stacks and we could pull out the black carbon before it gets into the air.
Doug

[and then]

It's just human nature to put off painful solutions to problems for as long as possible.  When the costs of inaction eclipse the cost of trying to deal with the problems then we will get serious about a solution.  People will not willingly give up their comfort or convenience until it becomes so expensive that they must choose to.  This is why the alternatives like wind and solar have not been tried to greater degree.  Just too expensive versus carbon.  And governments trying to artificially tax carbon to the point of pain will only harm the world's economy.  When/if droughts and floods begin to cause mass displacement of populations then we'll find the courage to change.

[questionmark]

Doug1o29, on 05 April 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

I'm not saying "Don't conserve."  I'm saying that unless we do a lot more, conservation will not be enough.  And if ten years is our planning horizon, why bother?  The system should still be working in 2022.  Personally, I'm planning to be around yet in 2040.  And my kids may still be around in 2070.

One way to get more carbon in the ground is to bury it.  People are talking about growing plants just to bury them in the ground and sequester the carbon.  We are already doing that - with paper.  When it doesn't make sense to recycle paper (The nearest paper mill to Denver is in Snowflake, Arizona.), just bury it and sequester the carbon.  Better yet, use it for fuel to replace some of that oil.  The average city could generate 5% of its power from the trash it throws away.  St. Louis is actually doing it.  Put some good scrubbers on the stacks and we could pull out the black carbon before it gets into the air.
Doug

I plan to be around until 2075, or my 120th birthday (unless I start getting Alzheimer's first) but I am very realistic about what is doable with what we got now.

[BFB]

JayMark, on 05 April 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

Wrong. Here is a nice picture.



So there you have it all. Now if you tell me that you still can't see how CO₂ is the main cause of global warming, it would be implying that the shown data is wrong. If that is what you think, then tell me where and how it is wrong.

That graph is incorrect.

Times the contails effect by 8. Also stratospheric water vapor plays a far more importen role than indecated in the graph. In the 80's and 90's stratospheric water vapor caused one third of the observed warming and have caused surface temperatures to increase about 25 percent more slowly since 2000.

[Doug1o29]

JayMark, on 05 April 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

That graphic ....

Those graphs look familiar, but I can't think of where I saw them.  Where did you get them?
Doug