So, what did happen to all that warmth?

[colin55]

We all know something is happening to the world’s weather, and many are suggesting cutting down on the use of fossil fuels by reducing heating, using CFL lighting etc etc.
But how much difference will this make when you consider China is introducing 2 new coal-fired electricity-generating plants each week. And India is expanding at a phenomenal rate.
The impact of our scrimping will be miniscule.
I have read the enormous amount of intelligent conversation in these posts but I really wonder if anything can be done about the enormous expansion of the third-world countries.
I see millions of tons of coal being exported from Australia each year and the ships are lined up at the wharf (actually a sea terminal) 24 hours-a-day to be loaded.
The increase in coal-burning is exponential and some cities in China are perpetually clouded in mist.
All the people in the third-world countries have seen and heard of the miracle of electricity and they want it too.
How are we going to deny them?
We have made these countries rich by buying their products.
For every $1.00 they earn, it gets spent within the week and this equates to $100 per year (actually more like $200 per year). In 5 years this is nearly $1,000. Now you can see why China’s economy will rival the US by 2020.
And the same is now happening in India.
Their call-centre and IT workforce is generating phenomenal returns. They already have over 70,000 students studying in Australia.
We manufacture doors for cool-rooms such as for 7-11 stores. India is now one of the biggest markets. They want everything cooled.
I don’t think many people realise the enormous growth that has taken place in these countries and this is where the demand for natural resources is coming from.
And next year the demand will be 20% HIGHER.

 

[Mikebits]

How are you making sure all the non natural CO2 you do produce is fully locked away?
I hold in my farts. I let them out when I visit the USA. I call it "cap and trade".

Now that is just funny. I do my part to reduce gas emissions, I eat cows.

 

[Thunderchild]

Thunderchild, I'm kind of in your camp, pretty much everyone agrees universally that some kind of action is necesary, the action being taken however won't get the desired goals accomplished. I can't really see that taxing coal/oil is unfair though, as even if it's not the end of the world evil it still is a pollution source, why shouldn't the money come from there, as long as it actually went into someting beneficial not just more pork barrel spending. There is almost zero accountability in government spending, and even less checks and ballances to determin cost/benefit ratios for big ticket spending.

well I'm not particularly against taxing oil companies they make the most money, but we will have to bring back one very good thing that those lovely people called the conservative party took away: Price control, price control used to ensure than ALL goods could not be sold for unreasonablw sums of money, now this does not exist, things either cost well over the odds or we have to put up with these cheapscate and sometimes dagerous chinese imports as superstores wage their price wars, if the goods were uk made with a cap on the price of imports we would be better off. The goverment put a £10 tax on flying, so what happens ? flying goes up in price by £ 10 per flight, the public pay, the goverment tax petrol (recently went up) who pays the difference: we do. At the same time we are literally pouring money down the drain fighting two outdrawn wars in the name of someone elses democracy when we can't even achieve this ourselves.

I work for a company that among others supply's the MOD, I've seen the prices we buy stuff in for and the prices the stuff is sold on for, yes your right there is no gov accountability (jolly we've only just figured out that our MP's are screwing us on their exspenses). If the goverment wanted it could make a difference. The other issues is that we have no more goverment run utilities so its all private and... exspensive. what would happen if the goverment was in charge of the electric and gas board ? and desiced to start making renewable energy ? they would have a lot more clout in getting stuff done at a reasonable price and for once giving the taxpayer value for money.

Car tax is in the name of being green charged by emmisions. now why not abolish car tax and put it on the petrol ? ok I have a 1.8L engine in my car and it supposedly emits a lot of CO2 (probably not as much when I drive it !) so I get charged a lot of money for car tax, but I could have that car sitting on my drive 300 days out of 365 in a year and still pay the same car tax as someone with the same car doing 100 miles a day !

 

[HarveyH42]

Since CO2, the super molecule is the culprit, and controlling it will save use from all natural disasters. We put a cap on how much can be released, and tax those who do, and everybody who owns something the emits CO2 (cars, kids, pets...). So, what will be the next course of action? What will be the new eco-terror that we must fight now. CO2 is just the logical beginning, but obviously only one small factor. 380 PPM, with water vapor removed, isn't a huge concentration, so either CO2 is some seriously potent stuff, or there are some other contributing factors, that we can cap and tax as well. A few years back, it was Methane, but it generated too many flatulence jokes to be taken seriously. Ecologist have enough troubles with credibility anyway. Obviously, the best we can hope for, is to slow the growth. We can't completely stop CO2 emissions, nor can we undo the past. So, what will be the next step? CO2 could only be a starting point, the door has been opened, and a little late to slam it shut. Nobody likes to admit to being taken in, specially not high ranking officials. We are are stuck with this, and will have to ride it out, until we get some new world leaders, who hopefully have a little better sense.

 

[Mikebits]

Just look at the amounts of garbage humans are releasing each day. How can you think that all this gunk is not affecting the planet?

 

[tcmtech]

Well after this scathing rebuttal and fully scientific response from the both of you on how to reduce CO2 I think I am going to do my part for the global warming and climate change effort and work on switching my high efficiency wood burning boiler over to burn old tires used oil and high sulfur lignite coal! I think that if I really rework it to run inefficiently I can get a good 10 truck tire and one ton of coal a day burn rate to balance out if I just use 50 gallons of old oil to keep them well lubricated! Coal is only about $22 a ton and I can get paid a $1 a tire for hauling away old tires and used oil only cost a bout 25 cents a gallon so it will balance out in the end if I just burn the other few dozen tires in the driveway every night!
Heck since I know a few people who have a bunch of old tires they dont know how to get rid of anyway I think I might just go out and light up a few piles of tires and high sulfur lignite coal in my driveway tomorrow to help get rid of my snow drifts. At least it will keep them out of the land fills and will do something beneficial for me plus being I am lazy it will be easier than having to move the snow with the tractor!

We have more nights a year here that are -30 F than days that are over +95 F so a 10 degree increase sounds like a pretty good improvement from where I stand! I will be thrilled to know I did my part to help get the 10 degree F or more rise that the believers say we are going to get!

Well I am off to order all of my parts from china so I can get the highest CO2 levels possible both directly and indirectly as I can get out of this as well.
I am just doing may part to see that we get the gains that are beneficial to my area and my needs!

Light er up!

 

[Thunderchild]

just look at the amounts of garbage humans are releasing each day. How can you think that all this gunk is not affecting the planet?

View attachment 37504

View attachment 37505

here here !!!

 

[BrownOut]

How are you making sure all the non natural CO2 you do produce is fully locked away?
I hold in my farts. I let them out when I visit the USA. I call it "cap and trade".

Don't you mean "crap and trade?"

What are you and your immediate family members driving?
2000 Ford Focus. The name says it all: a small and efficient car for basic transportation, but like kchriste, mine sits mostly in the driveway. I use alternative transportation, aka walking, and work from home as much as possible. I also have a Ford 3/4 pickup for those rare times when my focus won't transport the items I need, like when I rebuilt my back deck over the late spring and needed materials. Even then, it was just a mile or two to the supplier. Oh and I ride my motorcycle when the weather is a little warmer, it gets about 52MPG. When I want to spend a day at the lake, I take out my sailboat. A friend of mine complains about spending $40/day for his ski boat. I spend about $3/year for fuel for my rarely used outboard.

What are you heating/cooling your homes with?
When I am cold, I put on a sweater. When I'm hot, I wear shorts and tee-shirts.
Typically I heat with a kerosene space heater. It's like 99% efficient and uses radiation heat, so I can feel warm even as the interior temps are cooler. I turn off my heat at night and sleep under a thick down comforter. I don't need to heat while I sleep, but this week has broken that somewhat. I haven't run my AC in 8 years, despite the fact that I live in a very warm state, and recent summers have pretty much all been records for high temperatures.

What are you getting your electricity from and how much do you use?
From the power company. I have reduced my electricity usage by efficient appliances, lighting, etc. I only use the minimum necessary, unlike many of my neighbors who seem to need every interior light on every night, and even have flood lights illuminating their house exterior, which I don't understand. My exterior lights are on a motion detector, and operate only when needed.

What are you eating and how do you get it?
Hmmmmm.... I pretty eat what everyone else does, but I can get it from local growers when possible. Not only does that mean my food comes from lower energy sources, but I know who is growing it. And I never see the ones always griping about immigration at the Farmer's Market.

How are you making sure all the non natural CO2 you do produce is fully locked away?
Nobody can do that at this time.

What local and community efforts are you undertaking to educate and inform your local populations with?
That's a great question. Aside from educating individuals, I can't make much claim here.

What are your overall cost outlays for all above efforts related to what you have done?
In terms of dollars, my efforts save money. Personally, I've gotten used to living in a less convenient manner to save energy. Some of my friends think it's just weird, so the cost is social standing only.

Here are some other ways I reduce the energy I require:

Recycling: I recycle just about everything and very rarely need to have my garbage picked up. Here are some useful facts, mostly from memory so the numbers are accurate, but not exact.

Energy saved from recycling aluminum cans: 95%
Energy saved from recycling steel cans: 50%
Energy saved from recycling glass 23%

I also recycle paper, cardboard and plastic. All of the energy savings account for pickup and transportation of the material.
I unplug appliances, all wall warts and anything else that would leak energy when not needed.
I use efficient lighting and only the minimum necessary.
I don't heat my house when I'm not at home. I know there is some debate over how effective that is, but I'm convinced it's the right thing to do.

Botton line: pretty much every decision I make is influenced by my desire to reduce the energy I use, and thus my carbon footprint. Do I think I'm perfect? Get real. I still have some growing to do, but I always back up my talk with action.

 

[HarveyH42]

I'm confused. We've had record breaking cold weather for about a week now, and probably into next week as well. Don't remember any record highs last summer. No hurricane has passed through this part of the state since 2005. We haven't had any tornadoes locally for quite some time, and not much for the thunderstorms either, which use to be almost a daily thing when I first moved to Florida. Really not seeing the rising temperature, or radical storm events, as predicted.

The thing is, most of North America is seeing record cold temperatures right now, but if the global temperature has been rising, and sharply this past decade (hockey-stick graph), why the record low temperatures? Seems to be a pretty large amount of land involved, to be just a local abnormality. How's the weather on some of the other continents? Anybody else setting record low temperatures? Will they revise the Hockey-stick?

I moved to Florida, just to get away from the ice and snow damn it. Can't we tackle this warming problem in a few more years. Hasn't seemed like a problem this past week, but my dog is loving it.

 

[Sceadwian]

Mikebits, think for just one second where all that 'gunk' came from.. Mother nature created it.

 

[smanches]

What are you and your immediate family members driving?
I drive a 1988 Ford Ranger with a 2.9L V6. 17-20MPG, but I drive less than 3000 miles a year.

What are you heating/cooling your homes with?
Wood when it's cold, otherwise electricity. Soon to be wood pellets.

What are you getting your electricity from and how much do you use?
I have 100% green electricity. 50% comes from my own power companies hydro plants and wind farms. The other 50% is bought from "the grid"

What are you eating and how do you get it?
I eat mostly whole foods that I cook myself. Rarely do I eat out or buy prepackaged food (Can't afford it.) Everything is bought from my local market who is really good at keeping local organic/sustainable (I find sustainability to be more important than organic) foods on the shelves. I buy bulk whenever I can. I also have a 200sq ft garden that keeps me in vegetables for many months.

How are you making sure all the non natural CO2 you do produce is fully locked away?
Besides burning wood, the only other major source of CO2 from me is making beer or wine. I keep a very green yard and lots of plants which should make up for it. Lots of plants in the house as well.

What local and community efforts are you undertaking to educate and inform your local populations with?
I routinely post bulletins other information about the local recycling rules here in the office (these people wouldn't know how to recycle if it was the only thing left on earth.)

What are your overall cost outlays for all above efforts related to what you have done?
I built my wood stove out of some fire brick and some cast iron radiators (it's a boiler essentially) $200 or there about.
Put about $1000 into the rest of my heating system (hydronic baseboards) to replace the electric ceiling heat that was originally in the house.
Spent $2500 total on my truck now, including all maintenance. Runs great at 168,000 miles.
Spent $200 on a good mix of garden dirt, and another $100 on other misc supplies/tools. I'm sure this has already paid for itself.

That's about all I can think of. Can I join the club now?

Honestly, I truly do believe in leading by example, and all of the above is because of that.

 

[xl5]

Freeze or Fry. The Majority on the Planet are unaware of it. A Quarter have heard of it. A Fifth realise it. The Scientist's Know it!

Climate Change.

 

[kchriste]

Mikebits, think for just one second where all that 'gunk' came from.. Mother nature created it.

Correct. All that CO2 sequestered over millions of years, is now being released in a few hundred.

 

[Sceadwian]

Really? When has science fully quantified all of the fossil fuel available on the entire planet and determined every way in which C02 has been sequestered. How was all that material weighed and quantified to make such a bold statement? Oh yeah... it hasn't...

You're making another assumption without valid science to back up what you're saying..

ALL that I said was be aware of where that gunk came from.

 

[Sceadwian]

Just to give you an example of how gullible people are and how 100% true information can be used to give a horribly wrong public opinion to something that is completely normal.

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division - dihydrogen monoxide info

The reason I get so ticked in threads like this is because there should be ABSOLUTLY NO ROOM in science for this kind of paranoid unmitigated trash, there's too much real work to be actually DONE without having to worry about all the loonies on a bender over some random single perceived issue which we don't fully understand. It's politicized and bent so far around it breaks into this all around dribble that people believe whole heart-idly.

 

[kchriste]

ALL that I said was be aware of where that gunk came from.

I know what you said. I also can guess what you implied. ie: It's "natural" so it is perfectly OK to do that.

Really? When has science fully quantified all of the fossil fuel available on the entire planet and determined every way in which C02 has been sequestered. How was all that material weighed and quantified to make such a bold statement? Oh yeah... it hasn't...

That's why I made it a broad general statement. The basic truth is this: That 1 ton of CO2 from oil took a heck of a longer time to get sequestered than the time it took us to release it.

Just to give you an example of how gullible people are and how 100% true information can be used to give a horribly wrong public opinion to something that is completely normal.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division - dihydrogen monoxide info

LOL! That's pretty funny!

 

[BrownOut]

That's why I made it a broad general statement. The basic truth is this: That 1 ton of CO2 from oil took a heck of a longer time to get sequestered than the time it took us to release it.

I'm just amazed that you have to explain this to an adult. It's become Romber Room in here.

 

[Sceadwian]

kchriste I'm gonna answer your responses in reverse order cause it just seems to work better for me that way.

Actually it's not funny at all. It's horribly horribly sad and telling of the sheepishness of the human race. It's been done several times Google it, high school students have done 'projects' very similar to that, and people have done petitions at environemental rallys and upwards of 75-90% of people will sign a petition to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide based on the perfectly sound scientific data presented...

I hope that gets my point across, because believe me that is THE point as far as anything else in this thread goes.

That's why I made it a broad general statement. The basic truth is this: That 1 ton of CO2 from oil took a heck of a longer time to get sequestered than the time it took us to release it.

That statement is not necessarily true. C02 emited by man is a point source, that absorbed and emited by nature is over the entire valume of the earth, especially with respect to the ocean, and we have NO clue how these carbon cycles work in detail. It is reasonable to assume, but not scientifically valid that man's addition to earths c02 may have something to do with the observed average rises in c02 level, but we simply put DO NOT KNOW. Common sense says we should attempt to reduce the amount of carbon we put out, but not to completely upset our entire societies economic systems in the process or we'll screw ourselves worse than nature would have if we'd done nothing =P

I can safely and completely ignore your perception of what I implied because I don't imply anything intentionally, it's a very difficult thing for me to remove perceived emotion from what I'm saying because I do feel strongly about it, but what you think about what I'm saying is dead wrong.

The carbon we're producing is from nature; That is as close to an established fact as we can get. I did not intend to imply that this was okay in any way. Just that one must keep the source in mind, because we know so little about earths natural energy cycles in the first place that pretty much everything that is said is implication in the first place and not really based on anything even remotely resembling sane logical analysis of simple data collected.

The house of cards is still there, it's just as unstable and it doesn't matter how impressive it looks, it WILL come down and the likelihood is that we as a species won't even be here to see it happen. A basic fact is that you me and every currently living human being on this planet will not be here when there are actually true statistically provable answers to these questions.

So we're on almost post 300 in this thread now, and there isn't even anything to talk about!

I've heard from various people that there is one major method to determine if something is insane or not. If someone/thing is insane it will continually attempt to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Almost everything I read about the doom of humanity that is based on environmental 'science' is heavy paranoia for us to immediately act to save ourselves. It's nothing more than a simple mass hallucination designed (by ourselves and not conciosuly) to ease our own inability to deal with the temporary status of our own existence.

A million years from now, this planet will in all statistical likelihood be here, things will be different than they are now. We can not predict how they will be different, and most importantly WE WILL NOT BE HERE. All this blibber blabber is like shouting into the wind pointlessly to no positive outcome to anyone or anything involved in the discussion. This entire thread is a virtual insanity diary.

 

[Mikebits]

kchriste I'm gonna answer your responses in reverse order cause it just seems to work better for me that way.

Actually it's not funny at all. It's horribly horribly sad and telling of the sheepishness of the human race. It's been done several times Google it, high school students have done 'projects' very similar to that, and people have done petitions at environemental rallys and upwards of 75-90% of people will sign a petition to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide based on the perfectly sound scientific data presented...

I hope that gets my point across, because believe me that is THE point as far as anything else in this thread goes.

That statement is not necessarily true. C02 emited by man is a point source, that absorbed and emited by nature is over the entire valume of the earth, especially with respect to the ocean, and we have NO clue how these carbon cycles work in detail. It is reasonable to assume, but not scientifically valid that man's addition to earths c02 may have something to do with the observed average rises in c02 level, but we simply put DO NOT KNOW. Common sense says we should attempt to reduce the amount of carbon we put out, but not to completely upset our entire societies economic systems in the process or we'll screw ourselves worse than nature would have if we'd done nothing =P

I can safely and completely ignore your perception of what I implied because I don't imply anything intentionally, it's a very difficult thing for me to remove perceived emotion from what I'm saying because I do feel strongly about it, but what you think about what I'm saying is dead wrong.

The carbon we're producing is from nature; That is as close to an established fact as we can get. I did not intend to imply that this was okay in any way. Just that one must keep the source in mind, because we know so little about earths natural energy cycles in the first place that pretty much everything that is said is implication in the first place and not really based on anything even remotely resembling sane logical analysis of simple data collected.

The house of cards is still there, it's just as unstable and it doesn't matter how impressive it looks, it WILL come down and the likelihood is that we as a species won't even be here to see it happen. A basic fact is that you me and every currently living human being on this planet will not be here when there are actually true statistically provable answers to these questions.

So we're on almost post 300 in this thread now, and there isn't even anything to talk about!

I've heard from various people that there is one major method to determine if something is insane or not. If someone/thing is insane it will continually attempt to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Almost everything I read about the doom of humanity that is based on environmental 'science' is heavy paranoia for us to immediately act to save ourselves. It's nothing more than a simple mass hallucination designed (by ourselves and not conciosuly) to ease our own inability to deal with the temporary status of our own existence.

A million years from now, this planet will in all statistical likelihood be here, things will be different than they are now. We can not predict how they will be different, and most importantly WE WILL NOT BE HERE. All this blibber blabber is like shouting into the wind pointlessly to no positive outcome to anyone or anything involved in the discussion. This entire thread is a virtual insanity diary.

So now we are insane, how nice. With each of your post or tirade in this thread you get ever more insulting. Here is an idea, if you hate this thread so much, then don't friggin read it, or are you compelled to click on the thread due to OCD?

 

[kchriste]

kchriste I'm gonna answer your responses in reverse order cause it just seems to work better for me that way.
Actually it's not funny at all. It's horribly horribly sad and telling of the sheepishness of the human race. It's been done several times Google it, high school students have done 'projects' very similar to that, and people have done petitions at environemental rallys and upwards of 75-90% of people will sign a petition to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide based on the perfectly sound scientific data presented...

So you don't think the site was just created as a joke that got out of hand? On the CBC, we had a show called Talking to Americans which went around asking stupid loaded questions of people in the USA. Usually they were about Canada. One famous one was when, posing as a reporter, Rick Mercer talked to Bush about our, now ex, Prime minister as Jean Poutine. The 20hr clock bit was pretty good too. Stupid people are everywhere in the world. No one has a monopoly.

That statement is not necessarily true.

What? That plant matter can't turn into oil at the same rate that you can burn oil? Come on! Even if you burned the plant matter directly, such as heating your house with wood, it takes WAY more time for the tree to grow than it'll take you to burn it. That is what we are doing with oil. Burning it faster than it was created. Releasing carbon stored over a long period of time in a very short period of time.

So we're on almost post 300 in this thread now, and there isn't even anything to talk about!

I don't know about that. One way to end it is to agree with my point of view.