foodnotoil’s Recent Comments

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  Amazon Forest-Fire

  "Before it becomes subject to forest fires, my guess is, the atmospheric conditions will have to dry out significantly.  And that would kill a lot of the flora and fauna, before the fires kick in." caniscandida

  Yeah, your probably right about that. Ecosystems are pretty complex systems; its hard to know exactly how things are going to turn out. In some places, you can remove wolves and whole forests start to die. In other places, some forests can't survive without catching fire every now & then. Attenborough documented stuff like that in his films; namely The Private Life of Plants & State of The Planet.

  As for the amazon catching fire, I'm not sure who else is saying it, but I've seen numerous climate change documentaries, and Peter Cox often pops in saying that the amazon could catch fire in the distant future. He bases it on the projections produced by the supercomputer at the Hadley Center, which he works at.

  The first time I saw him say it, was in a documentary called Global Dimming. This' his quote:

  "2040 it could be four degrees warmer, the climate change could have led to big drying particularly in the Amazon Basin, that would make the forest unsustainable, we'd expect the forest to catch fire probably, turn into savannah and maybe ultimately even desert if it gets really really dry as our model suggests." Peter Cox

  But he also says it in the new Attenborough documentary about climate change. The link I gave in my last post is a video-clip of Peter Cox from this documentary.

  I don't know where exactly to find actual research on the basis of this claim, but according to this article, it says that the report, Climate and the Amazon: Consequences for our Planet based its conclusions:

  "largely on the work of Dr Peter Cox and Dr Richard Betts from the UK Meteorological Office at the Hadley Centre and Professor Roni Avissar from Duke University in the United States. They reported their findings to a conference on 'World Climate in Danger: the Amazon Connection' held in London in October, 2002."

  It also says that if you want a copy of the report, "Climate and the Amazon: Consequences for our Planet," you can contact peter.bunyard@btinternet.com

  As for up-to-date trends, your guess is as good as mine.On What does it mean to say global warming is 'natural'? posted 3 years, 4 months ago 9 Responses

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  Tipping Points

  This' how I describe it when I want to merge the natural forces & the "un-natural" forces (whatever that means):

  ...There exist many different natural storehouses of greenhouse gases all over the planet; from the fossil fuels we dig up, to the plants & trees that absorb CO2, to the oceans and permafrosts that retain methane & other elements.

  Humans, in particular, have hijacked some of those natural greenhouse gases (fossil fuels) and continuously vapourised them into the atmosphere. As we have been doing this, global average temperatures have been rising faster, lock-step in-line with our global CO2 emissions.

  As temperatures rise, we risk setting off "tipping points" of other natural greenhouse gases &/or catastrophy-fueled events. These tipping points include, but are not limited to:

  • ice sheets melting resulting in less white ice bouncing sunlight back into space, fueling more warming as more blue waters soak up more sunlight & heat.

  • Warmer waters fuel hurricanes to grow bigger.

  • melted ice means higher sea level(s), flooding, killing & displacing people in areas home to thousands/millions of people.

  • oceans also absorb CO2, and that's starting to cause the oceans to acidify. Too much acidification destroys phytoplankton. When you destroy phytoplankton, pretty much the entire foodchain of the oceans risk a terrifying collapse since phytoplankton is the bedrock of the ocean food chain.

  • hotter & hotter temperatures will eventually lead to the amazon catching fire in the not too distant future, releasing vast amounts of more greenhouse gases.

  • amazon rainforest is a big part of air conditioning of the world. That much less plants & trees soaking up CO2 will mean much more CO2 stays in the atmosphere for even longer, driving temperatures further still.

  • Drive the temperatures far enough, and ~10,000,000,000,000 tons of methane hydrates, a greenhouse gas 21 times stronger than CO2, start to melt more rapidly from the bottom of the oceans & within permafrosts, causing the oceans to boil in a firy-display, savvy enough to use the word "armageddon..."
  On What does it mean to say global warming is 'natural'? posted 3 years, 4 months ago 9 Responses

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  funny

  In fact, ...it's almost as if they intentionally put the word experimental in it just to get people riled up.

  Indeed, why didn't they call it the "Renewable Hydrogen Combo Energy System?"On The future is (still) coming! posted 3 years, 6 months ago 19 Responses

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  experimental

  ...so, how do they plan on holding a gas that is 100 million degrees Celsius, a temperature that is several times hotter than the center of the Sun?

  With a doughnut-shaped magnetic field? Is this for real? Can magnetic fiels actually hold temperatures that hot?

  This troubles me greatly; and to throw on top of it all, it is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

  ...Experimental? Sounds safe, doesn't it? lol... we spent tax dollars on this???On The future is (still) coming! posted 3 years, 6 months ago 19 Responses

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  Rushkoff & Hippel

  Rushkoff has touched on this albeit in his relatively new book, Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out; www.rushkoff.com/box.html

  Also, ...of the same ilk; MIT Eric Von Hippel's pdf book he released last year, entitled Democratizing Innovation.

  In Hippel's 1st book, The Source of Innovation, he showed that in many cases users innovate ahead of firms. In his 2nd book, Democratizing Innovation, he goes much further and systematically presents a new framework for an entire user-centered innovation system.

  Eric Von Hippel, 1988; The Source of Innovation
  Eric Von Hippel, 2005; Democratizing InnovationOn Has the corporate-responsibility movement lost sight of the big picture? posted 3 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses