Re: Perplexed about climate change
- From: "Nick" <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:25:38 -0000
"Energumen" <ener_gumen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:439b46be$0$63094$ed2e19e4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Nick" <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:400qfgF17ts6fU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> "Scorpius" <spam@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:439b2d5a.11589500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 18:00:13 +0000 (UTC), "Burt Gummer"
>>> <perfection@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>><MikeinCamden@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>news:1134236247.406905.237410@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> Some say its real. Others like the prof with the beard say its not.
>>>>> I'm
>>>>> perplexed. Can anyone give me any guidance as to whether CO2 emissions
>>>>> etc? I just don't know what to say when with a group of righton bien
>>>>> pensant yoghurt knitters.
>>>>>
>>>>I am equally baffled by both sides of the debate, what does slowly
>>>>appear to
>>>>be dawning on me is that the lobby that say global warming by man is
>>>>false
>>>>tend to be americans and people with vested interests in oil and coal
>>>>use.
>>>>but equally the yogurt knitting tree huggers are also over inflating the
>>>>issue, Personally I think the toxics such as PCBs anddioxins will see
>>>>humanity off before global warming does, either even even if proven
>>>>beyond
>>>>ALL doubt that it is a man made disaster the Yanks and Chinese are not
>>>>going
>>>>to do anything to adress it.
>>>
>>> The real problem is that it is not possible to make computer
>>> projections of chaotic phenomena past a few iterations. In the case of
>>> daily weather, meteorologists are doing good to predict out to 8 days
>>> with any kind of accuracy.
>>>
>>
>> But the phenomena isn't purely chaotic. If a deterministic drift is
>> introduced (eg increase in CO2) it is prudent to consider what effects it
>> may have. This is not to say that we are certain of any particular
>> outcome but we can at least quantify likelihoods in ballpark figures.
>>
>> It does appear that the current increase in C02 is extraordinary and even
>> if the probability of catastrophic climate change is only a few percent
>> it seems to me we should be doing something about it.
>>
>
> What does "doing something about it" mean? Surely for CO2 the only thing
> we can really do about it is leave fossil fuels in the ground unused
> forever. Otherwise we are just playing around with timescales, which may
> or may not be a sensible thing to do, but it wouldn't make the problem, to
> the extent that it may exist, go away.
>
? CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by various natural processes. The
obvious way to reduce CO2 would be to create less than is removed. As for
burning fossil fuels it does seem sensible to look for alternatives even
with out global warming they will run out.
> Agriculture has led to the extinction of millions of species and may have
> been responsible for starting global warming
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/10/1070732281706.html
> It also led to many disasters. Indeed for most of the time agriculture
> made death by famine much more likely since it's high efficiency compared
> to hunting and gathering meant that variations in weather had much greater
> relative impacts on levels of food production. It also led to increases in
> communicable diseases, both human to human and animal to human. It created
> diseases of malnutrition, many of which are the biggest killers today in
> the year 2005. Agriculture led to an immediate reduction in average
> lifespans and health.
>
You don't appear to understand the magnitude of the problem? Comparing CO2
levels to previous affects of human agriculture is ridiculous.
> Swathes of the earth have been turned into artificial food producing
> factories for humans called fields. Should we return to being hunter
> gatherers? Realistically we can't, and realistically we won't be leaving
> the fossil fuels in the ground either. So are we just having a debate
> about how quickly or slowly we'll use them up? Or are we serious that
> we're going to leave them in the ground?
>
This is nonsense there are alternatives to fossil fuels. Nuclear, less car
use etc.
> Many times in the past hunter gatherer societies consciously decided that
> they didn't want agriculture. Those societies are almost all gone now.
> Their neighbours who did decide to adopt agriculture conquered them
> because the wealth that agriculture produces meant that the hunter
> gatherers could not compete, economically or militarily, and their hunting
> grounds were taken and turned into fields. Maybe not immediately but
> inevitably. That process actually hasn't finished yet. It's still going on
> in Brazil as we speak (and still contributing to CO2 levels). So if we
> decide not to use up the rest of the fossil fuels does that mean that
> nobody will? If somebody will then it might as well be us. The only "do
> something about it" that I can see counting is deciding to leave them in
> the ground, like the hunter gatherers who decided not to turn their
> habitats into fields, but how long would that last? Will someone else just
> come along and take the benefit?
You are right a world solution is required.
>
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Perplexed about climate change
- From: Energumen
- Re: Perplexed about climate change
- References:
- Perplexed about climate change
- From: MikeinCamden
- Re: Perplexed about climate change
- From: Burt Gummer
- Re: Perplexed about climate change
- From: Scorpius
- Re: Perplexed about climate change
- From: Nick
- Re: Perplexed about climate change
- From: Energumen
- Perplexed about climate change
- Prev by Date: Re: David Duke on Syrian TV
- Next by Date: Re: David Duke on Syrian TV
- Previous by thread: Re: Perplexed about climate change
- Next by thread: Re: Perplexed about climate change
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
