Global Warming Cause: People or Planetary Mechanics?

[Turtle]

... a good start would be this link: http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

if the cause is determined to be emissions from the engines of civilization, then we must stop civilization, give up planes and cars, fast foods, travel, warm homes and making babies. what other alternative have we?

 

Excellent link!

Is the last joking? :Whistle:

 

Often last to get the joke,

Turtle

[paigetheoracle]

QUESTOR: if the cause is determined to be emissions from the engines of civilization, then we must stop civilization, give up planes and cars, fast foods, travel, warm homes and making babies. what other alternative have we?

 

What! Are you joking? Give up all our addictions and act like sensible grown up people, being totally honest in our reactions and admitting "responsibility" for them, enough to actually do something to change them too? You must be out of your tiny mind and into my big hearted mind! Well done!:Whistle:

[TheFaithfulStone]

Uncle Al has numerous times laid out the numbers from the "official" scientific sources on humans contribution to green house gasses compared to natural sources over time. Rather than contradict him, everyone has chosen to ignore him. Try a search of Hypography for "global warming".

 

Okay, I don't remember Al's exact numbers, but I remember the jist - wherein he suggests that 20% of human carbon dioxide emissions come from "hind gut fermenters" just breathing, and that we need to kill all the brown people to solve global warming.

 

In any case, his numbers are correct, but his conclusions are all wrong.

 

Yes, it is true that water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - but Humans don't add as much water vapor (in relation to it's current proportion) to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

 

And African's breathing isn't the problem either.

 

Zythryn made a good analogy earlier, where he talked about a bucket filled to the brim. Let's expand on that.

 

The carbon cycle at it's most basic consists of "We breath Oxygen in and CO2 out, plants breath CO2 in and Oxygen out." That's fine - the amount of stuff that we breath in and out is pretty easily compensated for by normal biological recycling. Some of us, die, get absorbed into the soil and our carbon gets "transformed" into oil, or diamonds, or whatever. Basically, that carbon is removed from the cycle. When we dig it up and put it into the air, it isn't something that's accounted for by normal biofeedback cycles.

 

Yes, the globe can change temperatures on it's own, and the feedback cycles for this kind of change are not terribly well understood, since it happens on timescales of millions or hundreds of thousands of years.

 

In keeping with the bucket analogy, picture it this way - there is a constant drip into the bucket. In the bucket are several small holes - just enough to drain a little more than what drips in. Eventually the water level does drop, enough so that the holes are now above the water level. Now what happens? Well, the water level comes back up, back to above the holes, and then the cycle repeats itself on a slow sinusoidal pattern.

 

What we're doing is caching all of the water from one of the holes and piping it back into the bucket. This causes the bucket to overflow, since the balance isn't there anymore.

 

That's why anthropogenic carbon dioxide causes global warming - because it's carbon that's not normal PART of the natural process. In general, dino-oil isn't going to come up from the depths, and even then it's not going to be combusted. But dino-oil REALLY isn't going to erupt from two or three miles underground and get pumped in gaseous form into the atmosphere.

 

TFS

[Turtle]

... In general, dino-oil isn't going to come up from the depths, and even then it's not going to be combusted. But dino-oil REALLY isn't going to erupt from two or three miles underground and get pumped in gaseous form into the atmosphere.

 

TFS

 

Well sumarrized TFS. :hihi: One minor point: Al's numbers are spread through numerous threads going back at least a year; the breathing thing is just a recent (if not jocular) calculation set.

One major point: Dino-oil REALLY does erupt from the deep in volcanoes whether terrestrial or oceanic. That output, which ebbs & flows, dwarfs human contributions by magnitudes.

Ok, one more major point:lol: : While I believe global warming is a consequence of planetary mechanics, I do not support this as a reason to continue to pollute & waste resources. People need to continue ameliorating their waste & improving their efficiency in consuming resources not because they cause global warming, but because global warming is here.:Whistle: :hyper:

[TheFaithfulStone]

One major point: Dino-oil REALLY does erupt from the deep in volcanoes whether terrestrial or oceanic. That output, which ebbs & flows, dwarfs human contributions by magnitudes.

 

That's true. The difference is that human contribution pretty much IS constant - or at least constantly increasing - it never really goes down.

 

No single drop believes it is responsible for the flood.

 

Ok, one more major point : While I believe global warming is a consequence of planetary mechanics, I do not support this as a reason to continue to pollute & waste resources. People need to continue ameliorating their waste & improving their efficiency in consuming resources not because they cause global warming, but because global warming is here

 

That's really the Pascal's Wager of global warming - we're damned ONLY if we don't.

 

TFS

[Turtle]

That's really the Pascal's Wager of global warming - we're damned ONLY if we don't.

 

TFS

 

I had no reply untill serendipity reared her lovely head. In reverse order from another thread on Pascal's wager( red emphasis mine):

The opportunity to catch Pyrotex in a rare error concerning matters theological is irresistible! :) It’s Pascal’s wager, not Descarte’s.

 

Other than the philosopher, I think the rest of the post is right on. :thumb_up

 

 

This is just DeCarte's Wager. It's been around for at least 300 years.

 

And the conclusion that it is critically flawed has been around nearly as long.

 

The wager only offers two selections. This is an arbitrary and unwarranted limitation of the problem. What if salvation is by Buddha or Vishnu or Siva or Isis? DeCarte ignored those possibilities. What if it IS by Christ--whose interpretation of Christ are you going to use? The Catholic Church? Methodists? Baptists? Christian Scientists? Mormons? Holy Rollers?

 

The wager is flawed in that it assumes there is NO cost to siding with Christ. Not true. Being in any religion costs plenty in time and money. And in integrity--believing many dogmas requires that you engage in play-pretend, or that you even damage your ability to think and use logic. Some churches carry this so far that its members can reasonably said to be mentally damaged or even irrational.

 

And what if salvation winds up being an eternal slave in somebody else's paradise? What if the gods lie? What if the gods play hideous jokes on humans for their own amusement?

 

What if you could have become a great statesman, businessman or scientiest, and done something to save humanity--but you threw it all away to become a groveling, bowing, tithing, syncophant to a pulpit master?

[TheFaithfulStone]

Well, yes the wager is flawed, especially in regards to religion.

 

But the logic of it is applicable to the global warming dilemna.

 

You have two options - try to solve it, or don't.

 

Situation: Global Warming is not caused by people.

Action: Do nothing.

Result: It get's hot, and Florida becomes part of the ocean.

 

Situation: Global Warming is not caused by people.

Action: Do Something

Result: It get's hot, but maybe not as hot, Florida becomes ocean.

 

Situation: Global Warming is caused by people.

Action: Do Nothing

Result: Hotness. Ocean.

 

Situation: Global Warming is casued by people.

Action: Do Something.

Result: No Hotness. Floridians don't drown.

 

Sure it's simplified, but I think that it's the truth in this case. In otherwords, the only thing you can do which DOESN'T result in Florida being a swimming hole is try to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions. Maybe it won't work, but at least you can say you tried.

 

TFS

[paigetheoracle]

And African's breathing isn't the problem either.

 

In general, dino-oil isn't going to come up from the depths, and even then it's not going to be combusted. But dino-oil REALLY isn't going to erupt from two or three miles underground and get pumped in gaseous form into the atmosphere.

 

TFS

 

Firstly, maybe we could get everybody in Africa to breathe together in perfect harmony - maybe that would solve the problem!

 

Secondly, dino-oil isn't normally going to come up out of the ground and be combusted - what about volcanic eruptions? Surely volcanic vents could rip through undiscovered oil fields and burn them up as an accidental byproduct? Talking of which, what about volcanic eruptions adding to global warming? Think of the amount of material they throw into the air and its cloaking effect upon the atmosphere.

 

Another point - what about deforestation? David Attenborough in a recent program about this very problem of global warming, pointed out a side-effect I hadn't thought about and that is drought. This speeds up deforestation by killing trees and leading to forest fires, which makes logging seem like a minor problem in comparison.

 

Hope this adds fuel to the fire:lol:

[Michaelangelica]

Sorry Turtle. Can't offer my vote on this one. The two are absolutely not mutually exclusive.

I had trouble voting too.

I don't think anyone really knows; but it is some mother of an experiment we have going. We are playing with an amazing, immensely intricate system.

Whats the quote? something like: The world is not only more amazing than we know. It is more amazing than we can know.(Correction please?)

 

My feeling is that the world is in the long term cooling into another ice age. That seems to fit with what we know about history and other planetary wobbles.

In the short term we are heating up because of the increase in human caused CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.

China and India's rapid economic development should add a lot of fuel to that fire

 

I used to live on a hill. Now I live near a lake. Does that make me an optimist?

[pgrmdave]

If we are headed to another Ice Age, then TFS, you need to add something to your equations

 

Situation: Global Warming is not caused by people.

Action: Do nothing.

Result: It get's hot, and Florida becomes part of the ocean.

 

Situation: Global Warming is not caused by people.

Action: Do Something

Result: It get's hot, but maybe not as hot, Florida becomes ocean.

 

Situation: Global Warming is caused by people.

Action: Do Nothing

Result: Hotness. Ocean.

 

Situation: Global Warming is casued by people.

Action: Do Something.

Result: No Hotness. Floridians don't drown.

 

Agreed, but..

 

Situation: Global Warming is not caused by people and is merely a blip on the way to an Ice Age.

Action: Do nothing.

Result: It stays warm longer, and Boston isn't covered by a glacier for a long time.

 

Situation: Global Warming is not caused by people and is merely a blip on the way to an Ice Age.

Action: Do something to slow global warming

Result: It stays warm for a little while, then gets much colder, covering Boston in a glacier.

 

Situation: Global Warming is caused by people and is merely a blip on the way to an Ice Age.

Action: Do Nothing

Result: It stays warm longer, and Boston isn't covered by a glacier for a long time.

 

Situation: Global Warming is caused by people and is merely a blip on the way to an Ice Age.

Action: Do Something.

Result: No Hotness. Earth cools. Boston = glacier.

[Zythryn]

One minor point: Al's numbers are spread through numerous threads going back at least a year; the breathing thing is just a recent (if not jocular) calculation set.

 

While I have seen his claims that the amount of co2 we pump into the air is insignificant, I have yet to see any actual numbers or links to numbers.

 

Is Al did supply those, could you give me a link to the thread?

 

I only found one source for this data (wikipedia which I prefer not to rely on) and it did not support his statement.

[TheFaithfulStone]

If we are headed to another Ice Age, then TFS, you need to add something to your equations

 

Yeah, but there's not any evidence that the next Ice Age is around the corner.

 

There is however, plenty of evidence that it's going to get warmer before it gets cooler.

 

TFS

[Turtle]

While I have seen his claims that the amount of co2 we pump into the air is insignificant, I have yet to see any actual numbers or links to numbers.

 

Is Al did supply those, could you give me a link to the thread?

 

I only found one source for this data (wikipedia which I prefer not to rely on) and it did not support his statement.

 

OK, I am reviewing threads & have something to report.:hihi: While not making specific mention of global warming, it goes to the issue of the real costs of so-called "alternative" energy sources.

Re: A New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy - 09-16-2005, 10:49 AM

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The US consumes the equivalent of 1.2 metric tonnes of matter 100% converted into energy each year, E=mc^2.

 

You are all clueless. Sparrow farts run through a gas turbine won't get you 10^20 joules/year. Not now, not ever. Pulling 10^20 joules/year out of wind or waves would monstrously perturb the weather. Where do the energy and raw materials necessary to fabricate and install your New Age hind gut fermentations originate? Who pays for the environmental impact reports and litigations therefrom?

 

What are the unknown hazards? Can you guarantee absolute safety for 10,000 years? Let's have a uniform set of standards, eginineering and New Age bullshit both. Area necessary to generate 1 GW electrical, theoretical minimum

 

mi^2

Area, Modality

====================

1000 biomass

300 wind

60 solar

0.3 nuclear

 

3x10^7 GWhr-thermal/year would need 9 billion mi^2 of wind collection area. The total surface area of the Earth is 197 million mi^2. 24 hrs/day. Looks like yer gonna come up a little short if 100% of the Earth were wind generators powering only the US.

 

Are ya gonna alternatively burn algae to generate 10^20 joules/year? Now you are a factor of 3 even worse - before processing and not counting inputs. THEY LIED TO YOU. They lied to you so poorly it can be dismissed with arithmetic. Where are your minds?

Uncle Al

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/

(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz3.pdf

 

Reading some of his sources I found a table of great utility for us:

Conversion Table for the Common Energy Units

:cup:

 

What's your carbon footprint?!:doh:

Alarming graph!:eek2:

[Turtle]

Found a couple more gems, but still not the post I thought I recalled remembering; something about the CO2 from pre-human industrialization forest/wild fires.

Paging Uncle Al...Uncle Al to the Help The Global Warming Git Desk... Uncle Al please pick up any white courtesy phone.:eek2:

Here we go then with the record:

http://hypography.com/forums/earth-science/4133-could-earth-end-up-like-venus.html

Re: Could earth end up like venus from global warming? - 10-06-2005, 05:02 PM

 

Venus has surface temperature of 900 degrees,

 

900 degrees in whose temperature scale? Venus is closer to the sun - look it up. The local solar constant varies as the inverse square of the distance. If the Earth were bone dry and had a CO2 atmosphere it could not get as hot as Venus.

 

Earth's historic normal state is either hot wet jungle (e.g. Carboniferous Era) or glaciation. Everything in-between is merely transition. We are still warming up from the last glaciation. Do you like the idea of colonial Jamestown, sitting at the end of a southern estuary, being frozen down to -40 (and that works in both F and C)?

 

http://hypography.com/forums/science-projects-homework/6508-tidal-energy.html

Re: Tidal Energy - 05-07-2006, 05:29 PM

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Quote:

Harnessing the tidal lift in the Gulf is one of the planet management pojects proposed by our non-profit Global Stewardship Foundation.

 

Energy is conserved. If you extract energy from the tides then you change the moon's orbit. Do you want to screw around with the moon's orbit?

 

Save us from the do-gooders.

[Zythryn]

Lots of agresive speach and hyperbole. Very little actual numbers.

 

I do understand, from a number of posts I have read that Al feels that we have an inconsequential affect and the warming we are seeing is simply a natural cycle.

 

While I disagree with that, it is certainly possible. It does not change the fact that we need to do something. If, as Al suggests, we can have no effect on global climate then we need to figure out how to live in a world that is warmer. Identify what is going to happen and act accordingly.

 

For the wind generation, I can power my house with a small 10kW wind generator. I know not everyone can and don't propose wind to replace all other forms of power generation. However I suspect wind power can generate between 10% and 40% of residential electrical energy (currently it is supplying about 1%.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Al is professionally negative.

 

That stuff about the moon orbit? That's utter bollocks. It's true in an academic sense, but the amount of energy we could extract from the tide is insignificant in comparison to the amount present

 

There are .8x10^82 joules of Gravitational Potential Energy in the Earth / Moon System.. The moon already gets 38 mm closer to us every year. Even if we take . <insert sixty-two zeros here> 1 x 10^82 (the number he gives for world energy consumption) joules away from that it's insignificant.

 

TFS

 

actually, it's more than that because G in the equation is supposed to be (-) and I didn't.

[Turtle]

That stuff about the moon orbit? That's utter bollocks. It's true in an academic sense, but the amount of energy we could extract from the tide is insignificant in comparison to the amount present

 

There are .8x10^82 joules of Gravitational Potential Energy in the Earth / Moon System.. The moon already gets 38 mm closer to us every year. Even if we take . <insert sixty-two zeros here> 1 x 10^82 (the number he gives for world energy consumption) joules away from that it's insignificant.

 

TFS

 

actually, it's more than that because G in the equation is supposed to be (-) and I didn't.

Nuh uh on the Moon getting closer; it is receeding from us.

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/moondrift.html

17. The moon has been observed to be moving away from the earth at about 4 centimeters per year.

 

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 28,400 for moon receding from Earth. (0.36 seconds)

In searching for specific global warming references of Al's (an elitist by the way, not to be confused with " professionally negative":hyper: ), I found more of the number calculations are in the links & not Al's explicit comments.

Nonetheless, here is my summary so far. We need to transition to nuclear in the near term as we go to solar generation(Earth and/or space based) in the long term because of human resource consumption and regardless of global warming.

As the natural global warming heats up, we're gonna need a lot o' juice for the airconditioners until the next cooling cycle comes.

Still on the planetary mechanics side,

Turtler