Climate Change, Carbon Footprint, What should I do, what should I support and what should I believe?
Posted by coventryrm on Saturday, July 19, 2008
First I want to thank blazeheliski for bringing much of this up and causing me to do a bit of research. I am not claiming that I have found any answers or that I have obtained huge amounts of knowledge. It does seem however that you can find information and extensive articles in support of either theory; we need to be concerned we don’t need to be concerned. Which is it?
I don’t think anyone really knows, and there in lies the problem so you can just pick a side and run with it and collect all the data you can find to support your cause. I believe that the media promotes and runs with the extremes so consequently we as a society react to the extreme. If someone was to accurately describe and lay out the facts as actually known would anyone listen? Would anyone feel the need to change their behaviors or would industry spend R & D money looking for alternatives? Who knows, I only have my own perception and opinion on what is really going on in this situation.
Do I believe that there are other resources for oil and that we should be taking advantage of those resources, sure why not? Have environmentalist made carbon emissions and the use of fossil fuels bad words, yes and they seem to have done a pretty good job of it. Is all this tied into “Global Warming” no solid proof one way or the other that I can tell, I personally think we will most likely be cooling into another ice age at some point. Being a skier I like this idea anyway so that is the one I am going with.
Seriously though I certainly do think that the Environmentalist have embellished and use scare tactics, not that the ends justifies the means but I can understand a bit of the rational it goes hand in hand with the philosophy or statement and I paraphrase, for real change to happen there has to be a crisis either real or perceived. It seems until very recently little has been aggressively done to find alternative energy sources by this country. Perhaps the environmentalists believe that creating a perception of crisis is the only way to actually get things moving quickly, history shows us that if tomorrow gas prices dropped back to $2.00 a gallon people would most likely just go about their business and would once again become complacent in the search and development of alternative fuel sources therefore we must come up with a motivating reason other than the pocketbook.
On the other hand Bush just announced a lift on a ban of offshore drilling, could the crisis in regards to oil prices be the oil companies’ way of creating a crisis to open up new markets and resources for oil. I don’t know the answer but it does seem, gas prices perhaps will force those “save the planet” types to look harder at the facts and be open to some balance in this confusing and complex debate. After spending a day of searching and reading articles on the internet I am pretty certain both sides of the argument have used “Bad” science to advance and argue their agendas. So there is the pendulum and the environmentalists have had it swinging pretty solidly to their side for awhile, high gas prices may swing it back the other way. Maybe in the end we will continue to look aggressively at alternative sources while at the same be willing to tap into what is available to us now with one not being done at the expense of the other.
In conclusion, I have decided that where I can and am willing without it causing undo hardship to my current lifestyle I will be conscious of ways that I can minimize my negative impact on our environment.
blazeheliski said
Much research is still needed to change what powers the world economies. We will have to drop oil and gas one of these days, because it is a finite resource. I think we are very close to having some very nice and green alternatives. I linked an article below about a new bacteria that has been discovered that produces Hydrogen when it breaks down celluose. One of the big stumbling blocks to us driving hydrogen fuel cell cars right now is that the only economically viable way to make hydrogen is with oil and gas. Using hydrogen in this manner does not solve any of our current problems. But if these little buggers can make the hydrogen for us – then we are in business!
Hydrogen bacteria
Bishop Rick said
Just saw a show on Discovery where a man has converted is car and house to run on hydrogen. His house uses electricity (solar panels) to convert the hydrogen. His car uses gas, but very little is needed.
It has been done.
Also have seen reports of a French company that runs cars on compressed air. Uses gas to compress the air only. Car gets up to 200 MPG. Owner was turned in his request from the big 3 to assist in development so got private funding. Is there some sort of conspiracy going on?
Bishop Rick said
Should have said “…Owner was turned down in his request…”
coventryrm said
There is another interesting show called “Who Killed the Electric Car” or something like that.
blazeheliski said
The hydrogen car is here. Honda makes it, and if you live in California you can lease it. There is no conspiracy killing the hydrogen car. The problem is we currently do not have a “clean” energy efficent way to get hydrogen. Currently, the best way for us to make hydrogen right now is from oil and gas. Therefore, hydrogen is an energy carrier rather than an energy source. Right now – energy carrier tecnology is working better with batteries and electric cars. Now if the article I linked above pans out – then hydrogen could be an actual fuel source. Link to hydrogen Honda – hydrogen Honda
There is no conspiracy that killed the electric car either. The only thing holding electric cars back is our current level of battery technology. The thing that has helped out the development of the electric car the last 10 years is the explosion of all the gadgets we have that run on rechargable batteries. Batteries have gotten better and better. There is tons of R&D in batteries these days. Don’t you think a company would love to devleop a battery that has twice the life and half the weight of our best battery to date? That company would be very rich. We are very close to having cars that have a viable range and performance that you can buy tomorrow. As I mentioned before on another thread – I am looking at buying an electric car from this company in the next couple of years……… Telsa motors
coventryrm said
Blaze this is right up your alley!
http://www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=1305032885&bclid=1655771616
blazeheliski said
That is pretty funny. Maybe they will start a “rock” religion?
They really should be worshiping CO2 as described in the article below.
CO2 is life
Ooops – I forgot – CO2 is bad. Just listen to Nancy Pelosi. She is “saving the planet” (I thought you said that was an 80s phrase Coven?) by not allowing an up or down vote in Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. Read what she says – I think she may need a vacation.
Pelosi: ‘I’m trying to save the planet’
blazeheliski said
Ooops – I guess the CO2 article is blocked. Here is a copy of it……….
Article Title: “G-8, CO2 And The Garden Of Eden ”
Author: Investor’s Business Daily
Section: Issues & Insights
Climate Change: A study on the impact of rising CO2 levels finds a future world of thriving agriculture and lush vegetation. Carbon dioxide, the gas some see as a threat, is indeed the key to life on Earth.
Even as the G-8 Summit announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, researchers at the Johann Heinrich von Theunen Institute in Germany find the rise in carbon dioxide levels may in fact be a boon to plant life on Earth.
The Theunen Institute, which has been monitoring the phenomenon since 1999, trained CO2 jets on plants, raising CO2 concentrations in the air around them to 550 parts per million (ppm), significantly higher than today’s levels.
The researchers announced on Tuesday that such increased exposure to carbon dioxide appears to boost crop yields.
“Output increased by about 10% for barley, beets and wheat” when the plants were exposed to the higher levels, according to the Institute’s Hans-Joachim Weigel.
That the Earth is getting greener due to higher CO2 levels was confirmed recently by satellite data analyzed by scientists Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the earth’s vegetation increased by a whopping 6.2%.
“Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates,” explained Lawrence Solomon in a June 7 article on the Running/Nemani findings in Canada’s Financial Post.
“Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century.”
Carbon dioxide has become the poster child for global warming advocates who constantly claim it’s the major greenhouse gas. According to Al Gore, each time you exhale while reading this editorial, you have contributed to global warming.
Carbon dioxide is in fact not a pollutant. Rather, it is the basis of all plant, and therefore all animal, life on Earth. So says Dr. Robert Balling, director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, who notes that “carbon dioxide concentrations were much higher in the past, millions of years ago, when plants evolved around the world.”
“When carbon dioxide levels increase, plants grow faster, bigger, more resistant to any number of stresses, and far mare efficient in their use of water,” Balling says. Hardly the scorched Earth scenario painted by global warm-mongers.
As atmospheric CO2 levels consistently have been increasing, global mean temperatures have not kept pace. Warming has not been constant. In fact, it has been interrupted periodically by – dare we say it? – global cooling, and seems to have stopped entirely in 1998.
These are not the kind of temperature fluctuations you’d expect in the face of steadily increasing CO2 emissions, if CO2 was the main culprit.
Richard Lindzen, of the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, notes that global mean temperatures have risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century, rising significantly between 1919 and 1940, declining between 1940 and the early 1970s, rising again, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.
As Solomon notes, CO2 levels were five to 10 times higher when dinosaurs roamed the Earth on a fertile planet where lush vegetation sustained those immense beasts. The Earth is cooler now than then, and cooler than it was during the Medieval Warming Period.
In that era, the climate was so warm that Vikings settled Greenland and grew crops there for centuries. When Eric the Red brought settlers to Greenland in 986, the climate supported the Viking way of life based upon cattle, hay, grain and herring for the next 300 years. Was it man-made pollution that allowed 300 years of Nordic settlement in Greenland? We don’t think so.
While others worry about the demise of the planet, we’re going to sit down and enjoy a nice green salad and take a deep breath.
coventryrm said
Did you watch the complete Penn and Teller show it was really good, I like most of what they do. They will even call bullshit on themselves, at the end of this show they say “We would like to tell you that global warming is bullshit” but we can’t because no one really knows, but they present very nicely all the things you have made points on. That Al Gore is getting rich off this, people are being fanatical freaks. We are passing laws that will hurt our quality of life because of people like Al Gore, none of which I disagree with. I had not really been following much of the fanatical stuff, yes I am surprised that people still use the expression “Save the planet” I have always thought that to be a joke, the planet will be here long after humans have become extinct.
As far as the co2 and plant argument I did a little checking when I was doing my research before I wrote this post. I can’t remember the links or exact data but it seems like I read one scientist that pointed out that yes, there is an immediate response and faster growth in plants from an increase in co2 however that growth or increase would not necessarily be sustained as there are many other limitations and other elements such as nitrogen and water etc… would cause the increase to max out and that we really don’t know that actual impact that this increase would actually have. Have you looked into any of that data?
coventryrm said
Maybe all this Green hype isn’t ALL bad
http://green.msn.com/galleries/photos/photos.aspx?gid=220>1=45002&page=1
blazeheliski said
Just think of all the CO2 released into the atmosphere to make those bikinis. If they really wanted to be green, they should be naked.
As far looking into the other stuff – I have. The Earth’s atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.9% Argon, and 0.038% CO2. In most current growth models – CO2 is the limiting factor. It is a trace gas on this planet. If the planet is truely warming – what happens when you heat up a planet that covered 70% with oceans? You get water vapor from salt water. You melt ice unlocking tons of freash water locked up for centuries. The planet would become more humid and more wet. How do you think the dinosaurs survived? The planet was warmer than it is now and there was more CO2 than there is now. That made conditions for huge plants and tons of green to feed huge animals. Who is to say that our current temperature and our current CO2 levels are the “perfect” levels. The Vikings sure wish that things would have stayed warmer and CO2 levels higher, because they would still be around. Don’t get too worried anyway – the Earth has been cooling since 1998 as confirmed by satellites and the Argos buoys.
coventryrm said
Cool MORE POWDER!!!!!!!!
blazeheliski said
Yummy powder………..Global Cooling!
SkiUtah said
The eco-sexy calendars seem like a great idea. I think Al Gore would have more supporters if he incorporated ideas like that into his power point presentation…
coventryrm said
Blaze, since you have studied this issue more than I, I have another question or thought to bounce off you.
When all this Global Warming hype started I did a little reading at the time and came to the conclusion that it was a lot of hype or reaction over something that we most likely didn’t have much control over regardless of the validity or the “warming claims” from the reading I did at the time it seemed to me that there was already evidence of this “cooling” that you are claiming. It also struck me that perhaps it would be better described as “Climate shifting” from what I understand as the ice cap melts that it has an impact on the ocean currents and sea levels, eventually it causes a substantial enough change to start putting the planet into a cooling trend.
My question is this; does the data from satellites and buoys reflect a net cooling? How is the data broken down? For example the ice cap is melting this summer was the first time in many many years that they actually had a shipping lane available, or lets say could the Pacific NW become more warm and tropical while somewhere else that has been typically a warmer climate begin to cool as the ocean currents change. It does seem to me that our summers here in the Northwest seem to be shifting starting later and extending more into Oct, it also seems that we go immediately from Winter to Summer and Spring seems shorter, there is nothing scientific about those observations and data to the contrary would force me to accept it is just my flawed perception.
I am curious as to your thoughts on this, because if we are cooling but not necessarily in the areas that were cooler in past history where will we have to move to, to still get powder?
coventryrm said
I keep getting this junk email sent to me,
John McCain’s strategy on gas prices is not complicated.
1. Tell people drilling will change gas prices (it won’t).
2. Tell people that since Barack Obama won’t drill, Barack Obama is to blame for gas prices (he isn’t).
3. Repeat.
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Last week, McCain put up an ad saying high gas prices are Barack Obama’s fault. This week, he has a new ad featuring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton that also attacks Obama for opposing drilling.
Clearly, John McCain thinks pushing drilling as a miracle cure to high gas prices is the way he is going to win. It doesn’t matter to him that experts say drilling won’t affect prices for at least a decade (if ever). He’s preying on people’s anxieties about how they’re going to afford their drive to work or get their kids to school.
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Help counter McCain’s attack on Obama and get this message to more people—contribute $25 now:
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blazeheliski said
You are asking some big questions Coven. This may take a few posts to answer them all. The biggest problem is that most people get their info from short sound bites that are trying to describe complicated scientific workings of the natural world. The other problem is that the media tends to be in the tank for global warming and reports falsehoods all the time, because it supports their position.
Arctic melting – it was last summer that the arctic ice melted enough to open the Northwest Passage it is not this summer. This summer it was predicted to happen again – but with only a few weeks left in the Arctic summer – it has not happened yet. Probably due to the under reported fact that there was record freezing last winter. You probably picked up on one of the other sound bites last summer saying that it was the first time the Northwest Passage has been open in centuries. This is an utter and total lie. It is amazing how easily the media tends to report falsehoods these days. Here is a quote from an article I linked below……..
“Last summer, the headlines read “First ever traversal of the Northwest Passage”. This sounds very dramatic, except that it is entirely incorrect. As the BBC reported: “In 1905, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage, in a wooden sailboat.” The Northwest Passage has been navigated at least one hundred times over the last century.
According to official US Weather Bureau records (pdf) from 1922, there was open sailing very close to the North Pole that year. Anthony Watts unearthed this quote from the Weather Bureau:
“In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81 degrees in ice-free water.”
Facts about Arctic melting
It is a good article about the ebb and flow of Arctic melting. We probably should ignore that the Southern ice cap is growing like crazy.
skiutah said
Interesting, if you google a bit about the author of that article on the Register, nobody really knows who he is. You’ve got people cheering about what he wrote and others saying it’s all junk.
So where does one get the “real” data about global warming/cooling?
blazeheliski said
Satellites and buoys. The first satellites to record global temps were deployed in 1978. That is back in the days when environmental alarmists were screaming about the coming Ice Age. Last May – the global satellites recorded the lowest temperatures they have since they were deployed 30 years ago. Thirty years is still a very short time when you are talking about global temperature trends, but it is a start. Each satellite takes 300,000 temperature readings a day compared to the 7,000 recording stations based on land.
Satellites showing Cooling
3,000 Argos buoys were deployed in 2003. Before that – ocean temperature recordings were very random and very inaccurate. These Argos buoys are very cool. They drift with the ocean currents at 6,000 feet below the surface. Every 10 days a bladder inflates and the buoy comes to the surface to transmit data to satellites and land based stations. Here is a quote from the article I linked………
““there has been a very slight cooling” over the buoys’ five years of observation, but that drop was “not anything really significant.” Certainly not enough to shut down the Gulf Stream.”
Argos Buoys
The buoys have only been in operation for 5 years – so we still have much to learn. But if you follow the current man made global warming model -the Earth’s atmosphere and the oceans should be warmer each and every year if CO2 levels are going up. The silence in the media about the Argos buoys is deafening. How many times have you heard about the Argos buoys in the mainstream media? Have you even heard about them since I told you about them? Too bad – you spent billions of dollars on them.
blazeheliski said
“Interesting, if you google a bit about the author of that article on the Register, nobody really knows who he is. You’ve got people cheering about what he wrote and others saying it’s all junk.
So where does one get the “real” data about global warming/cooling?”
With that article, I am talking mostly about Arctic Ice cover and the Northwest Passage. Again, that is the problem with looking at one spot on the Earth at a single point in time and claiming global warming or cooling for the entire Earth. The Earth is a bit more complicated than that. There is still much we don’t understand. There are no big secrets to the information the author is posting in that article. Just go to Wikipedia to get a good overview of human history relating to the passage. Read the stuff towards the bottom of the page – it has the same information the author posted in his article.
Northwest Passage
The information is out there – you just have to dig for it. For example when the New York Times reported last fall that the Northwest Passage was open for the first time in centuries, they dug for a little truth themselves and had to print a retraction 10 days later. Of course, they buried it deep in the paper when the original article was on the front page.
blazeheliski said
As far as the weather in the Northwest, this year has been the coldest winter, spring and summer I can remember. We still have 10 feet of snow on the shady side of our cabin and it is August. I have not seen that in the 10 years we have owned the cabin. If you listen to the solar scientists – you could have more powder than you know what to do with in 10 years Coventry. They say if the sun is as quiet as it has been the last few years – we could be heading into another little ice age.
Ice Age coming?
It comes down to this. Would you bet 100,000 dollars on an accurate weather forcast for tomorrow? I wouldn’t. How can we predict 10 years down the road? Until we have enough knowledge to successfully terraform planets – I would say that we don’t have enough knowledge to predict the weather future. There certainly is nothing wrong with being environmentally green to keep our local environments clean – just don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are “saving the planet.”
blazeheliski said
You wouldn’t get that crap email Coventry if you didn’t hang out on that wacko website Moveon.org.
skiutah said
yes, the earth is complicated. It’s been a lot warmer and a lot cooler in its history. I had a paleontology teacher point out that the polar ice caps are a relatively recent development in the earth’s history.
It seems like people pick a set of numbers, and use those to argue their point, either for or against global warming and it’s dangers (or not).
And not many people watching the news try to pick through the facts. They hear what they want to believe.
If the ice caps do melt, then Utah might be the place to be, and not somewhere close to the ocean…
coventryrm said
I don’t know why you would think I hang out on Moveon.org never even been on the site accept to check it out before I posted the email for your to laugh at! I think someone sent me a petition to sign to discourage Fox from “accidentally” slipping and using racial slurs when reporting their fair and unbiased news regarding Obama.
I would say I have moved from a narrow minded Mormon republican to the middle somewhere, but to you that might seem liberal
I have always thought Al Gore was a fanatic and subscribed more to the Penn and Teller viewpoints. Plus they are way funnier and usually have naked women on their show.
So yes potentially I was wrong to use the “global warming” example in the context I did regarding religion, but then according to you I just needed to flip it around and it would have worked just fine
But the main point which still stands – the Mormon author is a perfect example- regardless or whether or not “Climate Change/Global Warming” is valid or not he is opposed on the basis that it may deter someone from being a breeding morbot! So even if everything Gore is throwing our way and getting rich off of is 100% accurate and true he would still be opposed regardless of the facts, period.
blazeheliski said
I was just teasin ya – thus the winkey
Yes – Penn and Teller rock. Plus I was rootin for Penn when he was on Dancing with the Stars!
coventryrm said
I know but it allowed me to make some funnies back at ya! Oh and I edited my post while you were responding, it makes more sense now I think anyway.
Oh and thanks for all that other information.
coventryrm said
OHHHH and you never mentioned if you liked my car picture with all the bumper stickers.
blazeheliski said
I see cars like that every day when I drive down to Salem. They are usually driven by guys with scragley grey breads or women that look like the guys with scragley grey beards.
skiutah said
More “global warming” slanted reporting from a local rag in Denver today:
“The heat put the thermometer only 1 degree away from the hottest temperature ever recorded in Denver.
The record heat marked the 20th straight day that temperatures have been above 90 degrees in Denver.
Denver officially had its 19th day in a row with temperatures above 90 degrees on Thursday. This broke the old record of 18 days set in July of 1901.”
All I know is that it’s hot…
Henry Galt said
Well said. Where in the “debate” (sorry) is any credence given to human ingenuity. Luckily we have nearly 200 years of cheap, easily extractable oil and coal. If we don’t evolve by then we deserve to die off. I somehow think we will develop new technologies well before then.
blazeheliski said
Just a little more evidence that you may have more podwer than you know what to do with Coven. The last 3 times this happened in the last thousand years – it got very cold, very quickly soon after.
Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century
SkiUtah said
It looks like the planet is warming up to where it was 5000 years ago:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/switzerlandarchaeologyclimatewarming;_ylt=AuJ31_FcEO.QjhLOUao2xJcDW7oF
It just makes one wonder, the planet has been much warmer in its past, all without the help of humans. How much of the current trend is just a natural cycle and how much is being aggravated by humans?
In the meantime, if it’s cheaper for me to buy the fluorescent bulbs, then that’s what I’ll do…
blazeheliski said
Who knows – if it warms enough – the Vikings may return to conquer the world! Their plans were sadly thwarted in the past by the glaciers that exist today.
I use fluorescent bulbs throughout the house – not because I am trying to “save the planet,’ but because I am lazy and those bulbs need to be changed less often.