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.
That's largely irrelevant. We've released plenty of entirely artificial chemicals into the atmosphere that have zero noticeable effect. It's a different scenario of a similar type of event. If you fill one warehouse with CFCs and then release it into the atmosphere, it's not going to do much. On the other hand, if the whole world pumps millions, if not billions of metric tons of the stuff into the atmosphere for 70 years, you see an effect.
Psychoak was arguing that people can't do anything to affect the Earth's climate. It's the "The Earth is big, people are small" mindset. But it's wrong. We can affect the climate with sheer scale, and not just potency. I mean, think about the human body. We require trace levels of arsenic to survive, but it's also an extremely toxic (fatal) substance in larger amounts. Hell there are even chemicals that don't do much harm in large quantities but can do serious damage at lower levels (it's called a non-monotonic response and is actually very common in endocrine disruptors). There are tons of completely artificial chemicals, on the other hand, that don't seem to have any serious effects.
Whether a chemical is artificial or not is not a good gauge of its 'toxicity.' Just because a chemical is naturally present and maybe even varies in concentration naturally does not mean that there aren't thresholds which, if broken, can lead to serious effects. And just because a chemical is completely unnatural doesn't mean it's inherently toxic.
Yeah, and when those supervolcanoes go off they drastically affect the climate and atmospheres for centuries, even millenia - the eruption of calderas can bring about an ice age all by itself. Except volcanoes actually tend to cool the planet, not heat it up. The released sulfer combines with water to form sulfuric acid, which actually reflects sunlight away from the earth (and volcanic ash also contributes to the cooling but to a lesser extent). Besides, there hasn't been an erruption big enough to come even remotely close to matching mankind's CO2 emissions in millenia (I remember reading somewhere that the combined volcanic CO2 emissions are something like 1/150th of humanity's).
Yeah, that's true. But in this case I have to choose whether to trust the scientists beind funded by oil-related industry and conservative politicians, or to trust the scientists being funded by widespread miscellaneous private foundations and universities, government grants and liberal politicians, or neither. Frankly, I'm much more trusting of the second group partially due to their more diverse nature, partially because many of their funders really don't have that much to gain, and partially because the first group's funders have everything to lose. (That said, I hate crazy liberals as much as I hate crazy conservatives). People are much more desperate when they're afraid of losing than when they might win something. Now, I'd probably be content to trust neither group, but I've done extensive research on the topic, spoken to researchers in the field who I trust, to the point where I think I have a fairly good understanding of the situation. The people who believe that global climate change is a tangible risk have presented much more convincing evidence to me than the opposition.
Of course scientists may not be unbiased. But let me restate the point earlier made that the interrest of not doing anything against global warming is huge. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to reduce CO2 emissions and switch to different technologies? If it really is one big lie, I'm sure some oil tycoon would hire a few scientists to uncover the truth. But no one is doing so. There is hardly any disagreement between scientists, no matter who pays them, about global warming.
Most opposition to global warming non-scientific, and often by groups having a clear interrest.
Now, let me quote an oil company, Shell:
The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, one that demands an urgent worldwide response. There is now a strong scientific consensus that recent changes in our global climate are almost certainly caused by human activity. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, in particular from fossil fuel use, deforestation and agriculture, are the main contributors.
Source
So, wait a minute, someone who has an enormous interrest in denying climate change, is not paying scientists to uncover a huge fairytale, but says the scientific evidence for global warming is overwhelming???
A you really serious that someone is paying all those scientist to lie, fake everything, and really no one is hiring a scientist to uncover the truth?
You'd be wrong about that. Even a few thousand pounds of CFCs can make a good dent in ozone. More importantly, we released a few millionths (probably billionths) of the amount of CFCs as we have carbon, and it had a faster, more easily proven effect. If CFCs had already been present in the atmosphere at half the level we released, the ecology being damaged by the lack of ozone would have already been evolved to handle the UV now getting through.
For the rest, you'd be hard pressed to find a similar compound we release even in the quantity CFCs were, that is entirely artificial. Carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, ozone, NOx, etc all exist in nature, and do not have the same catalytic effects on systems evolved to deal with them.
If something is expensive, you can be assured that somebody is making money off it. All that money being spent is going to someone, and that someone almost certainly had a hand in creating the situation. It may well be the people making money were simply visionaries that saw this coming before anyone else or reacted faster and better than others, but it's pretty naive to simply assume so.
Except that most people wouldn't trust those scientists, would they? An oil company paid for his research, it's clearly biased and wrong. Hell, that exact viewpoint has been expressed more than once in this topic, hasn't it?
Or they could be putting a positive spin on some long-overdue diversification being forced by the marketplace. If the majority already believe it, it's likely less expensive in the long run to stop trying to swim up current.
We've released hundreds of billions of metric tons of CO2 since the onset of the industrial revolution. I remember seeing the number 750 billion metric tons, but I don't remember where and I can't find a number anywere (and I'm really not in the mood to do the calculation now) so that could be wrong. As of 1994 when CFCs were largely banned, the total concentration of CFC-11 and -12 amounted to roughly 1 ppb (link). Since the industrial revolution we've added approximately 100 ppm CO2. So that works out to about 1 million metric tons of CFCs. 1 million metric tons resulting in a 3% depletion; somehow I don't think a few thousand pounds (roughly 1 metric ton) is going to do much.
I just realized, though, that the concentrations I used were probably not by mass, which means my calculations are wrong. Nonetheless, a metric ton or two or CFCs wouldn't do jack.
Well you're the one who just said a few thousand pounds of CFCs would've made a big difference; we've released a few thousand pounds of craploads of artificial chemicals into the air . Anyways, I'll concede this point - and either way artificial chemicals would probably be more likely to cause harm than natural ones because if they have an effect, there's probably no natural balancing cycle.
Nonetheless it seems a little naive to me that, just because something is naturally present, raising its concentrations to essentially unprecedented levels wouldn't do anything. Salt is naturally present in ocean water, but if you double the salt content a whole lot of marine life is going to be really unhappy. What makes the atmosphere any different?
When someone with a conflict of interests presents evidence in favor of the interested party, there will always be suspicion. But in the case of global warming, qualified scientists with conflicts of interest are about the only qualified scientists who are confident that global warming is either not happening or not a problem. That is the reason that a lot of people are more than just suspicious in this particular case.
Globally, probably not. However, due to where they collect and their high residency duration, they would stil be having that effect for decades, if not centuries. Certainly they would have a local effect if all released at once. All evidence points to the contrary for CO2 - it's a pretty short term problem if we could stop feeding it.
Possibly because CO2 is not causing any sort of direct toxicity problem, nor interfering with biological processes in the least? Nah, that couldn't be it. I didn't check other forms of life, but humans can easily live in concentrations far higher that what we have, or are predicted even by the worst doomsday predictions. Plants actually grow better in higher concentrations. We are talking about a large percent jump compared to a trivial baseline - if it were not for greenhouse concerns, no attention would be given to CO2 at all.
I completely agree. My point is that no one is looking at conflicts of interest or secondary motives for scientists on the other side, because they're saying what you already agree with.
Nonetheless, I somehow doubt that one metric ton of CFCs would be enough to overcome the repopulation rate of ozone. But in more general terms you're right that because CFCs collect in relatively small regions and last longer, smaller concentrations could cause noticeable effects.
I actually find it kind of funny that we don't really know the mean atmospheric lifetime of CO2. I understand that it's variable due to all the competing positive and negative fluxes, but it still strikes me as funny. But yeah I believe the general consensus is that CO2 levels would balance out pretty quickly if we stop feeding it, unless we saturate the environment with it.
Pretend that altered salinity levels wouldn't be toxic to marine life. In fact ignore the effect on marine life completely. Salinity is the major factor in the density of ocean water, and water density and temperature are the two factors that control deep water currents (wind controls surface currents). One of the potential consequences of global warming is that as ice melts from Greenland into the ocean, it would lower the salinity, and thus the water density and the Gulf Stream could be altered or even stopped. The Gulf Stream actually did stop once, for 10 days in 2004. Scientists were (and still are) baffled and have no idea why it happened.
Altered salinity levels would drastically affect ocean currents, and thus the oceans' 'climate.' Altered salinity levels would also affect evaporation rates of ocean water, potentially increasing or decreasing water content in the atmosphere Obviously it's not a perfect analogy - the mechanisms by which oceanic salinity levels and atmospheric CO2 levels would affect their respective climates are different. But nonetheless, it's a very good example of how changing natural chemical levels can significantly affect environmental systems. Just because they're there naturally doesn't mean the system can handle them at any concentration.
I always make sure I know who I'm getting my information from. If a climatologist working for a solar panel company says something that contradicts or doesn't make sense with evidence or conclusions from sources that I do trust, and would benefit his/her employer, I am going to be just as skeptical as I would be of someone employed by an oil company.
I personally find discussions such as this facinating though one related topic I have not seen mentioned yet is carbon capture or carbon sequestration. For those of you who may not be familar with this the basic concept is instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere it is pumped underground into unminable coal and salt seams where, albiet in theory, it will stay in place and eventually convert to graphite. While this may seem fairly simple getting it to where this can be done economicaly has been problematic. Also there are concerns that the gas will "bubble" up to the surface and get into the atmosphere anyway. I'm not familar with other programs in the U.S. but I know Virginia Tech (I'm an alumnus of the engineering college there) has been researching this and has recently started preparing a smale scale experimental/example operation.
In my opinion this would be a good comprimise on the global warming issue in which coal can still be used and its carbon emissions would be effectively eliminated. Although carbon from oil and gas would be difficult to reduce in this manner as they are usually not as centralized as coal.
Please, comments and criticisms are welcome I am curious to see others opionions.
Maeas, carbon sequestration is a nice concept but the "problem" with it is that at the time it will be technically possible on a large scale (10 years minimum), most renewable energy forms will be already cheaper than carbon sequestration, which also reduces the efficiency of coal plants by about 20% to 30% , it might be still useful on some locations where big caverns are nearby though.
the price trend of fossil fules is rising, the one of renewable energies is falling (wind energy already has been cheaper than energy from gas plants in 2008 due to the high gas price), so even with all those sceptics around it won't change anything in the long run anyways.
CO2 also directly affects the oceans. It is also the main reason why sequestring CO2 might not work. When CO2 mixes with water, it forms Carbonic Acid (H2CO3) which, as the name suggests, is a slight acid. Models predict that due to the current rises in CO2, the oceans PH will decrease by .3 by the end of the century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification) and have already decreased by .075, a very major change for the ocean environment.
The fact that it creates an acidic compound with water, one of the most abundant compounds on the surface of earth, means any attempts to trap large quantities of CO2 underground will likely only be a temporary solution. Eventually, as water inevitably seeps into the large hole in the ground (the problem would be even worse if it was buried deep enough to penetrate the water table, which I would guess they will be) which then turns to a weak acid, which over time will melt away the rock surrounding it, letting the CO2 escape back in the atmosphere. That is the main problem with sequestring CO2, not the timetables on it. If you pumped all that CO2 into caverns, as you suggested, the limestone in the now acid filled caverns would not last long at all. To keep it from seeping up we would need specially made containers which are strong enough to be immune to any seismic activity, are airtight and watertight, and have an inner layer of acid-proof material; a bit of a tall order compared to just installing some new technology into power plants to reduce emissions.
The biggest problem with coal is, there is no clean coal. The industry reps may tell us otherwise, but this shows the reality of coal: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28353102/ Also note that the 'mud' the article mentions is highly toxic, and is full of all sorts of nasties like arsenic. "the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said sediment and water samples near the spill contained high amounts of arsenic, with one sample containing more than 149 times the maximum safe level." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28477746/
What if the earth is getting warmer. its been doing that for eons and world seems to be doing fine
But I agree there is no clean coal.
~The only diffrence between matyrdom and sucide is press coverage
Not gonna bother reading the whole thread, just gonna state my opinion:
I don't think we have enough data yet.
The Earth is pretty old, and we have direct, accurate measurements for only a small slice of time. I really don't think we have enough statistical confidence in our data and predictions yet.
Nuclear explosives can't be dangerous. After all, nuclear fission has been happening for eons and the world seems to be doing fine. It is not the rise that is alarming, it is the rate it has increased which causes concern. It may have been warming for eons, but it took eons for it to rise the amount it has in the past 100 years.
"The Earth is pretty old, and we have direct, accurate measurements for only a small slice of time. I really don't think we have enough statistical confidence in our data and predictions yet."
Ah! but how do you know the Earth is old? There are no 'direct' measurements, no person was standing there with a wristwatch to record how old it is. Most of science relies on indirect measurements. Ice core samples, mineral samples, ect are where the data comes from on past changes, and there is no lack of data either. Here are some graphs, which should show how nicely we are able to simulate climate change: http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm These graphs have both observed and predicted numbers, as well as causes (what the models used to simulate the data, human activity, natural occurances, and both). Note both how the overall trends are very similar as well as most of the cause for the recent rise being shown to be caused by human activities.
"So far so good".
Heres another few articles from the IPCC site:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/365.htmTo summarize this one, weather events will become more severe. Drought will become more common, there was a larger increase in predicted 'extreme' weather, than the increase in rainfall estimates, which means the storms will become more severe. Essentially, we are rapidly cranking the 'contrast' knob on the weather way up.
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/364.htmDaily temperature variances decrease. In other words, instead of being hot during the day and cooler at night, it will be closer to the same temperature during a 24 hour period than it currently is. Also a note that summer heat will be worse, due to increased temperatures and humidity.
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/366.htmLess small huricanes, more big ones.
And here are some graphs created by their various models under various conditions: http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig9-5.htm
On the 'indirect toxicity' of CO2 front, I've lost the reference, but last year I read about some botanical research on the growth of poison ivy in an enriched-CO2 atmosphere.
It appears that higher CO2 will not only drive faster growth of poison ivy, it increases the production of urushiol, the nasty stuff to which so many of us are painfully, even dangerously, allergic. At least here in Florida, that's a real bitch for those of us who try to avoid industrial herbicides in our yards--hippie-style poison ivy eradication is basically a low-level hazmat situation unless the worker is one of the lucky few who has no sensitivity (yet).
I suppose overpopulation could end up making that a moot point, though. Asphalt trumps viny weeds, more or less.
Only until viny weeds become super viny weeds that eat asphalt and spit poison at anything that moves within 10 feet!
Mumblefratz, your response to that was gold. But I feel obliged to follow up. The Earth may have been getting warmer for eons, but people haven't been significantly altering the atmospheric conditions for long at all. Concluding that our actions can't have consequences because up until our actions everything was going just fine is extraordinarily naive.
Also, even if human action has had no effect on the climate (which I don't think is the case), even if global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon, if the effects are as bad as they are predicted to be I personally think we have a vested interest in doing something about it anyway - if it is within our ability to do so. Although I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me about that.
So thats where the plants in Mario came from...
There appears to be some misunderstanding on how carbon capture is intended to function. The CO2 is not stored as a gas in caverns or containers but is injected directly into a mineral formation which it will chemically bond with. Wikipedia has a good article on this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage in particular the sections on gelological storage and mineral storage describe this process.
TheBigOne, while I would agree with the assumptions made as to how long it will take to get large scale carbon sequestration online and how much it will increase the cost of using coal, I don't believe your estimates on the cost wind versus the cost of coal are accurate. Government intervention aside; ten years from now it is unlikely that the cost of electricity, per kilowatt-hour, generated using wind will be less or equal to the cost of electricity generated from coal. That being said I still would not be surprised to see coal go from generating over half of our nations electricity to producting 30%-40% of it, though that is simply my guessing.
As far as the recent release of fly ash in Tennessee it is and unfortunate and could have been prevented. I am not familar with what requirements there are for fly ash disposal but I would agree that having these ponds meet similar requirements as coal slurry impoundments under SMCRA is a good idea. OSM should not be the agency to regulate them though. As far as the dangers the fly ash poses MSNBC , in their normal biased manner, has greatly overblown the danger fly ash is not "highly" toxic, while you certainly don't want to drink it you won't get heavy metal poisoning from just being around it and will definitely not cause radiation poisioning.
Sorry I used the wrong word, didn't mean caverns but exploited natural gas reservoirs, the amount of CO2 is way too big for artifical storages.
there are indeed many ways to capture CO2, here in germany we already have some 10 MW testing power plants where several approaches are tried one if it is putting the CO2 into exploited gas reservoirs, another injecting it into the ocean (which is probably a bad idea in my opinion). And as you have a lot of coal in the USA it might be cheaper over there then it is in Germany but the predictions overhere are 6.5 (euro) cent per kw/h for blackcoal powerplants with CCS and 5 cent per kw/h for offshore wind in 2020, with falling tendency for the wind costs and depending on model a stagnation or rise in the coal energy costs. We pretty much have all the land areas where wind power stations are useful covered already so not much use looking into their price for 2020 (its about 4 to 6 cent currently).
Blackcoal without CCS is about 3.5 cent per kw/h currently, don't have the exact numbers for lignite available right now but it was considerable lower, something like 2 cent per kw/h
(the costs are what it costs the owners to generate the power not what the consumer pays)
Ah, that makes more sense, thanks for clearing that up. I would guess we will start seeing more solar in the not to distant future. Currently, solar panels only turn about 17% of the light shining on them into electricity (if I remember the figure right), a figure which increases each year. Once it reaches around 30% I would guess it will become a much more feasible source of energy. One of the biggest problems with solar is the size of panel needed to generate electricity. The other big problem with both wind and solar is the lack of adequate battery technologies required to store the excess and supply electricity when need surpasses generation. I'm no expert on batteries, but I don't see it being more than 20 or 30 years for adequate technology to be developed, due to the market for such technology to already exist. And as we all know, researchers follow the funding
Edit: Seems I am a bit behind on the figure. According to wiki, the highest efficiency is 42.8% currently, although this is a type of solar cell designed for efficiency, not being economical. The average economical solar cell operates at around 30% efficiency.
I love this, it's hysterical.
I'm the nut for not worrying about the trace element plant food being increased to twice or thrice the ice age levels it's been because the only proof it will be good for us is from before life suffered all those ice ages. Ice ages that are, apparently, not indicative that you're all morons for being worried about one of the minor contributors to the green house effect just because the UN has some already proven grossly wrong computer models that say we're all going to die.
It's getting colder.
You are a nut. I am a nut. Everyone is a nut. We are all insane. If we were not insane would we do the things we do? If we were sane we would not imagine. We would not dream. We would not adavnce. We would still be in the stone age. We are all insane, and I commend you for realizing it. You are a shining example of humanities highest aspirations, the pinnacle of human thought. ALL HAIL PSHCHOAK!!! You will be a great person, and lead us into a new age! Insanity got us to where we are today. Insanity will get us to tomorrow. INSANITY FOR THE WIN!!!!
Samurye.
First off global warming is a natural proccess which we caused to speed up. A volcanoe can put more CO2 in to the air in a day than we can in a year. Frankly as long we stave off emmissions like we are attempting global warming is the lest of our problems. The thing id be worried about is Yellow Stone blowing up which will cause a new ice age. Underneath Yellow Stone is on of the word few super volcanoes which we foung errupt in cycles, and its over due. When that thing blows it cover basically all the farm lands in the Us destroying the bread basket of the world. It is hypothized that one of these super volcanoes went off at the same time the earth was hit by the meteor that killed the dinosours, a one two punch. Baically when it goes we are looking at instant ice age.
The only volcanos capable of such huge emissions are calderas, like the ones in Yellowstone National Park that you mentioned (there are 3 calderas in the Yellowstone hotspot). Since we've been measuring, it's estimated that CO2 emissions by mankind are responsible for, on average, ~150 times the emissions that are due to volcanic eruption. But the amount of volcanic CO2 is somewhat irrelevent, because overall volcanic eruptions have a net cooling effect due to the other particulates ejected into the atmosphere (notably ash and sulfur).
Don't buy into the sensationalism of the Discovery channel so easily. The last three major eruptions in the Yellowstone hotspot occurred 640,000, 1.3 and 2.1 million years ago (intervals of 660,000 and 800,000 years). To quote the US Geological Survey report:
U.S. Geological Survey, University of Utah, and National Park Service scientists with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) see no evidence that another such cataclysmic eruption will occur at Yellowstone in the foreseeable future. Recurrence intervals of these events are neither regular nor predictable.
Nothing is overdue. And even if we were overdue, the chances of such an eruption to occur in any one year would be hugely small. But perhaps the most important thing is that there's nothing we could do about it, anyway. If the Earth decides to start exploding out from underneath us, it's time to run for the hills (unless you live within a few hundred mile radius of the eruption, in which case you'll be annihilated by a wall of debris moving so fast you won't even see or hear it coming).
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