Re: Global Warming in the comics?

In article <1174777870.862313.327100@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<LNER4472@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 24, 10:53 am, Bruce Y <ifn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Heard about any> boiler explosions in the United States recently?

*Ah, yes, as a matter of fact, I have: Medina, Ohio in July 2001:
http://www.steamtraction.com/archive/5399/

Gettysburg Railroad near Gardners, Pa. in 1995:
www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/1996/SIR9605.pdf


Solar power and other alternatives have only one way to go, up. They may not
seem more efficient, but they can get more efficient if they are developed.

*Maybe, maybe not. At some point you run into the laws of
thermodynamics. Unfortunately, the only way to guarantee an increase
in the output of solar energy collection is to confirm that the sun is
getting hotter and more solar energy is reaching the planet--and then
we go right back to the opening premise of this thread, whereas if
that were to happen, or indeed that is what's happening, ain't nothing
anyone of any species on the planet Earth is going to be able to do
about it and the resultant global warming. Seriously.

Well, there's a long term brightening that all stars of the
sun's sort experience, so the sun is significantly brighter than it
was when the Earth formed. This raises the interesting issue of why
if the Sun was 30% dimmer there was any liquid water at all* and the
answer seems to be that the atmosphere's composition was different
in a way that trapped more heat.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that at some point,
the Sun will be warm enough to trigger a real run away greenhouse
effect, the kind that boils the seas and leaves the planet desicated
and roughly the temperature of a smelter. Unfortunately, merely removing
greenhouse gases only gets you so far, aside from the issue that plants
like a bit of CO2. I suppose we could try reflective clouds but a
more promethean plan is to simply move the whole damn planet.

What you do is use an asteroid to transfer momentum between
Jupiter and Earth. Jupiter drops a little and the Earth moves
a lot (I think there's another plan that puts Venus into the Sun's
roche limit, which is also cool). This involves a lot of time, so
plan ahead.



* I was just reading what might be the death knell for the Snowball Earth
scenarios, as it happens.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
.

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