Title says it all:
Go for it people!
And for those who dont understand what I'm saying, read Hot, Flat, and Crowded by THomas Friedman.
I'd just like to point out something hilarious posted by pidgeonhole, that graph showing CO2 concentrations over 400k years, it cracks me up every time some retard does it.
Ice Age Cycles.
Ok, so maybe it's not funny as much as it is scary, but since I wont actually be alive for the next ice age I guess I just don't give a shit.
That sounds about right, seeing as that is when we are projected to start running out of oil. Oh, wait, everyone seems to be forgetting that crucial bit of geologic information - all the carbon we're burning now started out in the air to begin with. It hasn't seen daylight in a while, but it WAS THERE. At the very worst, we'd be returning the atmosphere to the same condition it was in the late Pleocene. The dinosaurs didn't seem to mind.
pigeonpigeon and dimantione have both disqualified themselves from further discussion. The inability to recognize sarcasm has cast doubt on their ability to recognise valid points or interpret data.
And pigeonpigeon, your mysterious box analogy is stupid. You want someone to make a meaningful decision with no direct evidence based on a statistical sample of one? There is absolutely no evidence that proximity to the box had anything to do with the death. From the "evidence" given, it was equally likely that the box contained heart medication that the person was trying to retrieve before he died. For that matter, it could also have been moving AWAY from something unnoticed in the wall, or some other factor that shared a general direction with the box, but located elsewhere (floor under the box, wall behind it, etc) that caused the death.
Neither will doing the 'wrong' things, and it's a 50/50 bet doing the 'right' things won't either. I get very tired of AGW skeptics being accused of 'ignoring' global warming. In the minds of too many AGW proponents, it's AGW or nothing.
The burden of proof is on those proposing drastic change, as it should be.
Yes, true. Except the vast majority of those 4.5 billions years are hardly analogous to today's environment. Still, you are right that 400,000 years is a relatively short timespan compared to the hundreds of millions of years in which our planet has sustained life that at all resembles modern life. However, it is enough to encompass four major ice ages. There has been nothing as drastic as the CO2 increase in the last century in the past 400,000 years. That is good cause to worry that there has been a major change - something drastic is happening now (a 40% hike in CO2 levels in an effective instant in time) that has not happened in the past 400,000 years (during which we see a regular and stable cycle); Why?
That why is the question scientists have been trying to answer. And the only thing that they could find that has changed in the past century that hasn't been happening in the past 400 millenia is human activity. Things don't happen without a reason, and when we spend decades searching for potential reasons and find only one, it is not so crazy to to decide that that reason is the likely cause. There is never nor will there ever be absolute certainty (such a thing doesn't exist except in religion), so at some point we have to decide whether to make the call - in this case, that was a rather easy decision - human activity is the [very] probable cause of the recent hike in CO2 levels.
Whether those CO2 levels are causing global warming is a separate question. It just so happens that the scientific consensus is that it is indeed the probable cause. The warming trend started in full force shortly after the industrial revolution (ie, the CO2 came first), CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas, and our best models and simulations all agree that increasing CO2 levels can result in global warming. Most scientists in the field have used that evidence to come to the conclusion that the rising CO2 levels, which they believe result from human activity, are the root cause of increasing temperatures, and that if nothing is done to curb our emissions it is very likely that we will face a much grimmer world within the next century.
Association alone is not causation; but association along with evidence to support causation means that causation is in fact likely.
And the use of DDT in the first place was responsible for the death and suffering of its own fair share of people. Rampant and careless spraying of DDT was done in and around population centers; it resulted in deaths and a whole lot of health issues. In addition, because DDT has such a long lifetime, the concentrations of it in the environment were constantly increasing, resulting in higher and higher health risks to both people and wildlife. And not only due to direct exposure of spraying - concentrations DDT, like any persistent, non bio-degradable chemical would concentrate higher up in the food chain - and people happen to be right there at the top.
In addition, DDT was allowed to be used in places like Africa to combat Malaria even after its ban; it is still used to lesser extents today (but it has largely been replaced by newer, less harmful but still plenty bad chemicals). Continued mainstream use of DDT would have resulted in much worse and MUCH longer term problems than the banning DDT ever caused. DDT is basically the king of all endocrine disruptors (there are worse now, but none have been used in such volumes as DDT was).
DDT is an example of the difference between moron politicians and sensible individuals.
Instead of making it a restricted chemical with limited use, they banned it entirely. It's an outstanding bug spray, it's just not the kind of spray you should be using for crop dusting the entire continent. Dursban is another good one, the perfect spray for killing off wasp infestation in outdoor shops and warehouses. Just spray a bit around, close up, come back later to an insect void and sweep up the carcasses. Like DDT though, it was being used for things it shouldn't have been used for. Where DDT needed to be reserved for serious bug problems, Dursban needed to not be used as a residency spray.
Diazinon was banned too, and they've both got a typical halflife of a few weeks. DDT's halflife is as high as 15 years in the right conditions. Eventually someone will ban chrysanthemums.
This is not exactly true. Whether anthropogenic CO2 increases are the proximate cause of the current warming trend remains an open question. Just as association is not causation, 'consensus' is not proof. 'Consensus' has been wrong too many times to count.
Even if there were near-universal 'consensus,' proof is not some threshold degree of consensus. If 'consensus' were the standard, we wouldn't have satellites to help us measure global temperatures, since the 'consensus' at one time was that the Earth is flat. And at one time, was the center of the universe. The conceipt that 'modern' consensus is better than ancient consensus is just that, a conceipt.
Or as the case here in Illinois, mercury. The state recently banned all use of mercury measuring devices (thermometers, barometers, etc) as well as mandating the reduction of mercury in coal exhaust. The problem is that there are some aplications with no effective alternative. There are some temperature ranges organic thermometers simply can't reach, and the price to go digital is extreme.
In round numbers, a melting point instrument costs ~$300-350, and uses $15 mercury thermometers. In many cases, an organic thermometer costing $50 can be substituted, but only with a significant reduction in the accuracy of the measurement. Organic thermometers can't go above 250 C, and we often need to go to 400 C. That means we would need to go to digital thermocouple instruments, which are almost as accurate as the mercury thermometers, but would require replacing the instruments themselves to convert. That would be about $3,500 a unit, and I'd need about 60 of them. The environmentally consious solution is absurdly cost-prohibitive, and given the scale of use, entirely unnecessary. The amount of mercury spilled into the environment by responsible use of thermometers is essentially nil, compared to the tons produced by coal.
More importanly, this idiotic law was passed in secrecy. No one knew about it until we tried to order some replacements recently and couldn't. The head of the Health and Safety office for the university didn't know about it, and enforcing such things is his job.
Meanwhile, mercury containing flourescent lighting is replacing incandescent.
All of you that beleive what you have been told about global warming are cattle. Study geology and find out why. The ice ages and volcanoes will do wonders for your brains. Al Gore needs to live up to his last name get fed to the sharks. Just one volcanic erruption puts so much greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere that we havn't cought up with the first few, count them on one hand, erruptions that have occurred since the earth was formed. Venus is a runnaway greenhouse effect because of runaway volcanoes. Not because they used to have a civilization that produced CO2. Al Gore is so empty that if his calculations were correct we would already be dead even before he graced this planet with his great lack of intelligence. From downtrodden politician to the greatest climate expert in the history of earth. Wow. talk about wasted potential. Volcanoes are the greenhouse machines. And guess what ignoramuses, Sulfur is the greenhouse gas to be worried about, not CO2. Every time someone breathes they release CO2 in the atmosphere. Oh my gosh we're all going to die because we breathe!! Oh my gosh we need to start killing our kids and call it abortion because if they breathe we are going to die and run out of space. That's bad for any species to get rid of offspring. Extinction is the word that describes a species casing to exist because of lack of offspring. If Al Gore wants to stop breathing and put the rest of the world out of his misery by not having kids that's fine with me. I've never seen a tantrum thrown so long over losing a US Presidental election. I'm a member of the Democratic political party by the way. I'm also a California resident.
How in the heck is the earth overcrowded? And I thought people that lived in a vault called 101 were brainwashed. "All hail the overseer!"
People that die in Africa don't die because of over population. They die because of corrupt leaders and lack of government that protects life, liberty, property, and the persuit of happiness. They are not lazy either. I can't believe many people today even know how to type on the keybaord. The lack of education astounds me. I'm almost certain Adolf Hitler would have loved to have gone to war against Al Gore and the branwashed junkies that follow him. If the same notions currently in Europe and Al Gore and his cult followers existed during World War 2, England and the United States of America would both be speaking Japanese today. And Russia might be speaking German. Some freak in England released "his findings" that any family having more than 2 kids is speeding up global warming. If he turly believes it then why doesn't he sacrifice himself for the cause. He could go hijack a plane and fly it into a building and take out a bunch of people who must be increasing global warming because they are breathing. Seriously though, he is most likley not married and his extended family must all be dead. If he is married and just one extended family member of his is still living then somehow a pouched egg got a degree from a prestigious University. It wouldn't be the first time. All the big companies with scandels on their books that went away like Enron and MCI World had CEOs that graduated from a very prestigious University in the USA. After that became known that University is now offering a mandetory class on Business Ethics. You have to pass this class to graduate from that "place" now. I guess in 20-30 years we'll see if they fixed the rules on who they actually give degrees to. I'm not going to say the university. All the brainwashed junkies who may read this need to do research. No more handouts for you brainless morons who think killing your kids will solve the wolrds problems. Since you amazingly know how to type words then use the internet and heaven forbid a library and do reasearch on all this stuff. Does anyone need the internet and libraries to become educated. No. Anyone who takes intellectual handouts from anyone, teachers, fellow students, supervisors, leaders, whatever, is cattle and not good for anything. Except for building their leaders massive Pryamid tombs.
For all those who disagree with me and have done research, (who have not accepted someone elses "reseach" without doing their own and who know how to actually observe the world and see how things whatever they may be can be connected), my comments have not been directed towards you and congratulations we're part of a civilized world and perhaps if enough people who can actually think for themselves and do something are living in this world we can get along some day. Prevent Armagedon. People in the USA don't get along collectively because we all have the same ideas. We definetly don't. Democracy is not about agreeing, its about being civil when you don't agree. Majority rules is a main factor. I'm in the minority. Dictators are those who can't stand up to a sentient idea and or argument, (not a fight argument but a discuession argument), without declaring war on someone or something in order to feel their position of ignorance is valid. Declaring war doesn't have to be done with armies. A dictator is a dictator. Their is a difference between being a lapdog and being a truly sentient individual. Sentient people who disagree can still get along with eachother. And unfortuantely there are more lapdogs in the USA than sentient beings. But that would only be true of course if I beleived the media gossip. I hope the point I'm trying to make can be seen. And no, I'm not perfect.
If it weren't so sad, I'd laugh. They just have no clue as to the real-world consequences of their actions. But, hey, it ain't their money, right?
You are fully correct. At this time, I would say the global warming issue is at this time more threathening for humanity than mercury in the environment, but that doesn't mean this can be ignored. CFL's have the potential to create an environmental disaster if they are not recycled correctly. I would be in favour of allowing mercury in CFLs for a few years during the transition phase, and then forbid it just like in any other product (as mercury-less CFLs already exist).
Yep. And most people buying them don't realize they can only be legally disposed of as hazardous waste. We have spill kits and safety measures at the university, the average household does not.
It's a state university. It IS their money. Now all that remains is to see if they will see reason, or provide funding to fix this mess, or just expect us to magically find money to do it on our own. I know what I'm betting on.
I would ask you friendly you read the thread, read the posts that have been about and you will see that amount of CO2 being put into the atmosphere by volcanous is small compared to human emissions. You may also want to Google a bit about it.
This calls into question your ability to evaluate risk. Mercury contamination is a known, proven hazard with a pretty long half-life in the environment. Mercury doesn't just go away once it's in the environment - CO2 will. Most estimates (even by the alarmists) predict any human effect on the CO2 level would reverse itself within a decade or two, assuming we stopped emitting any entirely.
It remains an open question wether tobacco is harmfull.... We've discussing this to death in this thread already. No one in thread hasn't found someone who can be consired knowledgable about the topic and has no clear conflict of interrest that considers it an open question.
I agree. Fortunately concensus is enough knowledge to start doing something about it. If some scientist manages disproves the whole thing we'll see.
Depends how seriously you take the global warming risk. While I am not convinced of the most extreme consequences, global warming has the potential to halve the human population and extinct many species. That's not so say mercury is friendly stuff, but it doesn't have that potential, doesn't it?
Enough of it, yes. I don't think there is enough in existence to poison the entire planet, but we could ruin large chunks of it.
And for the record, if you don't think the possibility of killing off half the human population counts as "the most extreme consequences", mind sharing what those might be?
If the half that gets killed is the female half
I think Al Gore is much, much better at that than me , but I do consider killing half the human population among the most serious consequences. See it like this: .nl is for more than half of it's surface below see level. If the sea rises 0.5m, we'll build higher dikes and need to reserve more space for the rivers. Plan was approved several years ago, we are doubling the amount of water our rivers can handle without causing problems. If you claim you build the best dikes in the world, you'd better do so.
If the sea rises 1m, we have a serious problem, because the rivers can no longer release their water in the sea . But we're a rich country, we'll find a solution, if necessary we'll build monstrously high walls around the rivers. If it's 2m, then it's over and out, it's unlikely we have the economy that can build the monstrous installations that are needed to solve that.
Now, in "The inconvenient truth", Al Gore wanted to believe the world that The Netherlands was going to disappear below the sea. I consider that extremely unlikely, and this is what I mean with "not being convinced of the most extreme consequences". That said, more than 2m sea level rise is not considered impossible in the current climate scenarios. It's definately a risk that should be factored in.
Therefore, global warming is a more serious risk to our existance, than mercury is.
Now about the danger of mercury. If a mercury thermometer breaks on the floor, everyone near it is immedeately in health danger. A fluorescent lamp contains very little mercury. If it breaks you will inhalate more than the air quality norms allow, you wil inhalate the amount of mercury that you are allowed to inhalate for two weeks. As long as you are not exposed to it daily, there is little concern.
We've been using fluorescent lamps for decades, and we have not been poisoned by them yet. What is new is compact fluorescent ligths that can replace light bulbs. Perhaps the amount of mercury we produce for lightning will double.
Let me stress I fully agree the mercury issue is a real case against CFL's that needs to be solved, I am not so ignorant as some people here that deny actual problems. But let's not use the mercury problem as an excuse to do nothing about the global warming problem.
Red areas are less than 6 meters above sea level:
Despite 6 meters being a bit extreme, it does make the point of just how much land in coastal regions will be under sea water with just a little rise. And with that problem comes the problem of salt water seeping into the groundwater supply which had previously supplied a town or city with their water.
On the topic of salinization of ground water: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/index.html
"Rising sea level increases the salinity of both surface water and ground water through salt water intrusion. New York City, Philadelphia, and much of California’s Central Valley obtain some of their water from portions of rivers that are slightly upstream from the point where water is salty during droughts. If sea level rise pushes salty water upstream, then the existing water intakes might draw on salty water during dry periods. Salinity increases in estuaries also can harm aquatic plants and animals that do not tolerate high salinity.
Shallow coastal aquifers are also at risk (IPCC, 2007). The freshwater Everglades currently recharge Florida's Biscayne aquifer, the primary water supply to the Florida Keys. As rising water levels submerge low-lying portions of the Everglades, portions of the aquifer would become saline. Aquifers in New Jersey east of Philadelphia are recharged by fresh portions of the Delaware River which may become saline in the future."Or in short, even if a city stays above the water, it may no longer have a viable water supply. We are talking some of the biggest US cities here.
Gonna take a lotta ice melt to raise the oceans 18 feet.
Not really.
Yeah, I know, that whole historical perspective on things just isn't fair to the cause.
The 6 meters number is what you would get if all land ice would melt. It is the absolute theoretical maximum. It is at this time not believed we can melt all ice with our current CO2 emissions..
Pretty sure a 3 foot rise would screw Florida. Probably Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, too. New Orleans would have to start over. Again. Doesn't take much in coastal areas.
Has anyone stopped to consider whether, for the long-term health of the planet, these things need to happen (rising & dropping temperatures, rising & dropping sea levels, continental drift, you name it)?
It's all about us, after all.
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