Comments Des Emery has made

Oldmajor sounds pretty patriotic, and presents some logical ideas.  But logic also dictates that buying American (which does contribute to the support of your neighbour) obliges you to reject buying anything made or grown anywhere else in the world, like French wine, Italian cheese, or Japanese automobiles.  It also implies that you are willing to forego the sale of American-made goods to France, Italy or Japan, since those countries are equally as apt to buy stuff "locally" made or produced in France, Italy or Japan. Or Canada.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a patriotic Canadian.  I must admit that I am somewhat disgruntled that California, in it's Buy American fervour. actually tore up certain pipelines which had been installed in a legal bidding process won by a Canadian pump manufacturer.  But we are still open to American companies bidding (and winning) contracts.  Remember, protectionism invites reciprocal protectionism.

It is one thing to support the local farmer by buying his produce, but quite another to extend the principle to general commerce.  The difference between the two must be carefully scrutinized, and unfortunately there are many companies like the ones illustrating this Grist item which seek to mislead the consumer.

This entire discussion may soon be irrelevant.  Global Warming is happening, and for every foot of arable land which becomes available in the northern hemisphere, a mile of equatorial territory turns to desert and is lost to cultivation.

 Most of the rivers of the world are fed by glaciers which are rapidly melting away and not replenishing the fossil aquifers which we are depleting world-wide in order to irrigate food crops which in turn we are growing not as foodstuffs but for biofuel production to replace petroleum. 

Migration of people seeking relief from intolerable living conditions is invariably moving from south to north.  A glance at the map of the world shows why.  Most of the land mass involved is located in the northern half.  South America and Africa are both narrower in their southern parts and Australia is already mostly arid with no major rivers or lakes.  Availability of food is the driving force behind migration, and the nicety of grain-fed or grass-fed livestock, or the relative nutrional value of organics will not trump the hungry man's imperative to eat whatever is in front of him.

Evolution happens to plant species over millions of years of slow changes in adaptation.  AGW is not going to allow us the time to adjust.  We, the northern peoples of the world, are not prepared for the inevitable invasion that is coming sooner than we think.   

I wasn't trying to lay blame on anyone in my comment.  But the fault does lie in monoculture, organic or not.  Ireland is not a large area but the whole of it was devastated by the potato blight because everyone there grew potatoes and the failure of the crop led to famine and the Irish diaspora.

 In addition to the research which leads to "new and improved" crops, maybe we should be looking for fungicides and insecticides which kill pests quickly but do not affect human beings afterwards (no residue).

When I was a child, one of my farm jobs (in addition to gathering eggs) was walking up and dow the rows of potato plants, and using a little stick to knock potato bugs into a can of kerosene to eliminate them. That's hardly an option now.  Keeping a crop disease isolated is just as important - or perhaps even moreso - than 'organic' taste by itself.  

Stevendcal - I don't kow if there are rabbit colonies on Pluto, though I suspect there are not.  I do know about the fish from Newfoundland.  I also know that humans are omnivores, not herbivores nor carnivores. Lions and tigers are carnivores, existing by exclusively eating meat, buffalo and deer, which are herbivores existing by ingesting grass and leaves.  Solar energy passes in to grasses and leaves and then to buffalo and deer, subsequently to lions and tigers.  "All flesh is grass."

Like bears, simians (us) select from a varied menu, vegetable and meat, in order to obtain nutrients from as many sources as possible. We are not obliged to exist on one or the other exclusively.  Along with your choice to be a vegetarian, I hope you also preach spaying and neutering pet animals and euthanasia to reduce their overabundance.  Cats and dogs need meat in their diets which has to be supplied from farm sources, so the production of that meat requires either grass-fed or grain-fed animals to be slaughtered, too.  Keeping cats and dogs alive and healthy by force-feeding them vegetation would truly be cruel.

At any rate, Earth's climate is changing, and is being forced by the manner in which mankind chooses to live. Everything we do - or don't do - makes a smaller or larger difference so it really does matter if we feed cattle grain or grass, or transport them (or their by-products) in refrigerated trucks or build new highways for those trucks or grow uni-crops for them to eat.   

We are descended from simians.  Our genetics were altered by our ancient discovery that fire (in addition to providing light and physical protection) could 'cook' our food, making it more digestible.  The intensity of the prime directive of life - "eat, or be eaten" - became less imperative, allowing our ancestors to do other things beside ingest, digest, excrete.  

The ability to 'plan ahead' removed a great deal of 'chance' from our lives, and civilization developed through agriculture into mechanization.  Those two determinants became the drivers of population growth. Their mutual feedback, building each on the other, have led us to a period of global warming.

Whether we eat all vegetables, or grass-fed meat, or insects, will not secure our future.  We have to discover the limits to growth and then the balancing act which will keep those limits in check.   

Artesiawy - yes, I did misread your post.  Re-reading it now, I see your point about the sudden increase in CO2 and where it is stored now.  But I'm afraid that tidbit of information will make no impression on deniers of AGW who will continue to wilfully ignore any evidence contrary to their beliefs.  Logical argument will not convince them that our lifestyle is beyond the capacity of Nature to handle its excesses. 

Artesiawy - Your initial reliance on info provided by British Petroleum throws the rest of your argument out the window.  Your "assumptions" are made to re-inforce your opinions and should therefore be given the same credence which deniers give to AGW.  And it appears your figures for Pre- and Post-Industrial Age amounts of CO2 show that in that relatively short timespan the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has almost doubled.  Isn't that the very problem we are considering here?  It looks like your figures prove the increase in CO2 is directly connected to the Industrial Age, which in turn is directly connected to mankind's presence and activity.    

CO2 is a 'natural' gas, of course, absolutely necessary for life cycles of plants and animal.  But like almost everything else, it contains its own "tipping point" or the quality or quantity or temperature of a substance  at which it changes function.  For instance, the liquid/gas fluorocarbon which worked so well in refrigerators and air conditioners became disastrous as the escaped gas collected in the upper atmosphere as the "hole in the ozone."  CO2, carbon dioxide, displaces O2 in its tipping point - remember the canary in the coal mine - and smothers animal life (CO, carbon monoxide, is actually poisonous to animal life, replacing Oxygen in blood - the running car in the closed garage) as it did some years ago in Africa.  

The balance between plant and animal life is regulated by the slow change in relative volumes between O2 and CO2, usually requiring millions of years.  But mankind came to the Industrial Age when we were able to produce CO2 in unprecedented volumes just a few hundred years ago.  Of course we had fires burning in our homes before then, and manufactured things like swords and horseshoes by heating metals, but it was the vast quantities of "product" that required equally vast quantities of fuel that characterized the Industrial Age.  We are now approaching the "tipping point" of CO2, releasing the gas into the atmosphere within a few centuries, that gas that had been sequestered over millions of years into coal and petroleum under the Earth's surface.  

 At the same time, we have increased the ratio of animal life and decreased the ratio of plant life, further increasing the planetary volume of CO2.  The tipping point will soon arrive when just a little bit more CO2 will be enough to take us over the brink.

The Little Ice Age occurred co-incidentally about the time of the beginning of the Industrial age.  A team of researchers from Stanford U. was able to connect Columbus and the discovery of North and South America with a sudden and out-of-sync global cooling.  Those two continents were well-populated before Columbus arrived.  Following him were a lot of traders who brought blankets, beads and iron weapons with them.  They also brought syphilis, smallpox, and typhus, which decimated the sedentary farmers especially.  The rainforests and jungles which the aboriginals had controlled in order to grow their crops of potatoes, corn, pumpkins, tobacco, and fruits, suddenly surged in wild growth to occupy the cleared lands, and captured CO2.  Global Cooling happened, and with it the Little Ice Age.  Is that enough proof that Global Warming is also Anthropocentric? 

And it isn't just the northern warming that will be the problem.  When climate change is evident there, it will also be influencing the southern climes.  Drought and desertification will send people from the tropics northward in migrations that have never before been experienced.  Northward -- check out the globe, there is no large landmass in the southern hemisphere comparable to the northern hemisphere, so the USA, Canada, Europe, Russia, and China will be the destinations of choice (some choice) for the rest of the world, South America, Africa, India, Indonesia, Australia.  For every mile of the north that AGW opens up in the Arctic, a mile of the south will be lost.    

Storm Dragon is correct - Edward Jenner started the development of vaccination, using weakened germs to provide protection against stronger varieties which could kill humans.  Pasteur took the next step, advocating soap and water washing to eliminate common bacteria (still a good method of slowing or preventing the spread of H1N1 flu, even if it's a virus, not a germ) and inventing the process of heating milk to a temperature which would kill pathogens.

We still do not operate farms in a sterile environment, which is why we still need pasterurization as front-line protection, and will continue to need it for a long tme, at least until we can sterilize milk with a little pill dripped into the machines pulling milk from the mammary glands of cattle.

The internet is a great place to retrieve information.  But it is also a purveyor of opinion.  Every "pro" group can direct a reader to many sites which confirm that view.  But so can every "anti" group.  So it's still "caveat emptor."  Or maybe "caveat lector."

Gee, I didn't know that "consolidation leads to lower prices" -- penultimate paragraph in the article. I always believed that the opposite was true, that is, that "competition leads to lower prices." I guess there's just too many family farms out there providing milk and other foodstuffs for us city folks, when "consolidating" all those properties into factory farms and putting them under the proper management protocols (like the health insurance industry does) would make them all profitable. Perhaps it's "consolidation" which also causes gasoline prices to rise and fall in unison.

MagicMike - Raw Milk does contain beneficial bacteria, but it also holds disease bacteria, sours quickly, and is easily contaminated.

Delay and Deny - are you serious?  Palin, a world leader?  In what?  Helicopter hunting? 

I didn't study all the CLOUD info in your link, though I have seen other details on the theory itself.  But the influence of cosmic ray activity on cloud formation is much, much less than the influence of El Nino and La Nina on North American weather, or of the Gulf Stream on European weather.   And Anthropogenic Global Warming easily overrides those ancient forces.  Al Gore may have lost the Vice-Presidency (though not to Sarah Palin) and you can debunk him all you want, but he still tells "an inconvenient truth."

Exactly, Sindark.  Smitherman can play poker with the Feds as well as anyone.  He is trying to force Harper's hand, make him ante up his real intentions with relation to AECL.  If Ontario 'buys' new power from the Feds, Harper will find it much easier to sell off Chalk River to Areva or GE and then shift responsibility for nuke power to the new owners and put the blame for extra costs onto Ontario.  If Harper can't use Ontario's committal to buy future power from AECL, Harper might have to take a much lower price for Chalk River (and The Maple Reactors) and suffer the consequences when our deficit is already mushrooming like the proverbial atomic cloud.  Public opinion really does count in his machinations. 

A lot of people don't like Nuclear anything. Atomic Energy Canada Limited is no exception, even if it has the best record of use, the most reliable generation, etc. The federal government has made no secret of its desire to "privatize" what has always been a public utility. George Smitherman is a wily and pro-active "left-leaning" politico and his abrupt decision not to sink tax money into private pockets (the other bidders for supplying atomic energy to Ontario are Areva of France and General Electric of the USA) can be seen as his saying "No way" to Harper's efforts to find someone to take over AECL which made the lowest bid with the most favourable (to Canada)  conditions attached.

Americans shell big bucks out of their pockets every month for private health insurance, or at least take note of the  deductions on their pay slips which provide for that insurance.  It is an immediate expense.

But climate change is a bogeyman under the bed.  An imaginary monster whose dimensions are pretty well unknown and who might or might not touch everyone at some perhaps time in the future.

Americans also see themselves as "realists" ready to deal with anything that's thrown their way.  Health care may be the benefit that individuals can feel is more pertinent to the here and now, while climate change will still be there tomorrow.

Sean, tnx for the info on thermodynamics.  I can see that the cycle of carbon, oxygen and CO2 requires the same amount of energy input whether the cycle turns left or turns right.  I would just like to see the energy output somehow reversed to undo the combo.  Nature does it by making animal and plant life co-dependent, carbon-based animals inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide in conjunction with carbon-based plants taking in carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen, using solar energy to drive the process.  

Apropos the second law of thermodynamics, I remember asking a professor years and years ago why we couldn't "invent" a window that let in light but reflected heat outward during the summer and inward during the winter.   He gave the matter some thought but the conversation ended with him quoting the second law.  But we do have Low-E glass in our windows nowadays.  So perhaps some future day we will see little machines in our backyards busily pumping in carbon dioxide and pumping out oxygen, stabilizing our atmosphere.

One obstacle to America's progress relative to "the rest of the world" is the generally unrecognized difference in national personalties.  The world view of those characteristics may indeed seem simple and typecast -- the French as aloof and highbrow, the Germans as militaristic, the Spanish as nonchalant and laidback, the Russians as volatile, the Chinese as inscrutable, etc.   

But those attributes are based on centuries of observation by other nations and therefore require different approaches, different negotiations, different political stances.  Setting up many nukes could be seen by Americans as a logical way to reduce greenhouse gases, but North Korea and Iran could interpret such actions as "provocative irritations."  China legitimately sees American disapproval of coal energy (their ticket to ride) as a manifestation of the "dog in the manger" intent on keeping them in "coolie" status after using that natural resource recklessly to advance American industry in the past.

Education is not just not "readin' writin' and 'rithmetic.  Interpretation of ideas is going to be the fulcrum upon which the world is moved. or it will be the stumbling block which trips us up.

AGW dissenters always ask for information or references that will convince them that AGW or just plain GW is "real."   But they never describe what that "evidence" would look like, and go on and on quoting or referring to other deniers to bolster their beliefs (or non-beliefs).  Consequently, no argument will convince them that Global Warming is real, is imminent, and is dangerous.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source - a student invented a quote, attributed it to Maurice Jarre in an obituary, and later saw the identical quote in several English and French newspapers.  Blogs on the internet reflect opinions co-incident with the quoter's views, and their reliability then becomes suspect.  Peer-reviewed items, consensual recommendations (a la IPCC, which is also a Nobel Prize winning organisation) and governmental reports then become the legitimate sources of true information.  

Rusty Science

The Law of Unintended Consequences would seeem to apply here.  A small "experimental observation" at the Crozet Islands would not necessarily forecast the success of a world-wide fertilization of the oceans to promote the growth of phytoplankton in order to sequester "some" CO2 on the floor down below.  

Would we really be promoting growth in fishstocks, perhaps undesirable for food, or the proliferation of jellyfish in the upstairs and various creepy-crawlies down in the basement? On Scientists doubt efficacy of sea 'fertilization' posted 10 months ago 6 Responses

water, water....

At least there are ideas being 'floated' here, even if some are a bit strange (restricting human habitation to the "lower latitudes" when the bulk of Earth-mass is located in the "higher latitudes" out of the areas of desertification - look at a world globe).

And the majority of the world's river systems are the run-off of glaciers which are rapidly melting and will therefore deplete the amount of water in those rivers available to slake humanity's thirst, let alone flush his toilet.  

The right to water, like the right to breathe, without having to pay for it is also inalienable.On World heads for 'water bankruptcy', says Davos report posted 10 months ago 31 Responses

CO2

Are the climate researchers only looking at the |"increase" to be expected in the anount of CO2 we will produce and the unfortunate results of the changes that would be caused?

Surely then we should be looking at ways to soak up the CO2 we are releasing from burning fossil fuels, and trapping that CO2 back into the soil by pyrolisis?

It worked for Global Cooling during the Little Ice Age, after European exploiters brought metals, beads and blankets to the Americas post-Columbus, along with the smallpox, cholera and typhus which decimated the native populations of farming communities and allowed the rapid regrowth of rainforests and jungles to absorb atmospheric CO2 and produce the cooling effect until the Industrial Age got underway.On NOAA: Global warming 'irreversible' for next 1,000 years posted 10 months ago 15 Responses

sowing iron

Don't little fish eat a lot of phytoplankton?  And bigger fish eat little fish?  And big fish... So phytoplankton get re-cycled in the upper ocean layers rather than just dying and dropping to the sea-floor.On Scientists doubt efficacy of sea 'fertilization' posted 10 months ago 6 Responses

Global Warming - and Cooling

A team from Stanford U. has just completed a study which connects human activity and climate change.  

Pre-Columbian indigenous natives in the Americas were hunters and farmers, the latter clearing and re-clearing large tracts of land to grow various crops.  Following Columbus, the European explorers and conquerors brought metal tools, blankets and beads with them for trade.  They also brought epidemics of typhus, cholera, smallpox and other diseases which decimated the natives.  Hunters survived, farmers didn't.

When the farmers deserted their lands, the jungles and forests surged back, and drew enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to produce a cooling effect over the whole globe, leading to the Little Ice Age anomaly.  The settlement of the New World after that released a lot of carbon, warming the climate again.  The advent of the Industrial Age contributed even more carbon, and we are now seeing the results of that connection.

There is therefore evidence that what we do does indeed change the way in which the atmosphere is balanced, and the change leads to either warming or cooling depending on the amount of carbon which gets sequestered or released by our actions.

So it all comes down to our choice whether we acknowledge it or not.

Des Emery

Warming seas

are just more examples of the realities of Global Warming. Today on the radio I heard a university professor who is in his 60's and has made the study of eels (yes, that delectable food source) his speciality in teaching biology.

He casually mentioned a shocker for me in outlining the eel's life cycle from an egg in the Sargasso Sea, through larval development, adult migration for several years, then back to the Sargasso Sea to breed once and die.

That shocker was the fact that the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic which encircles the Sargasso and which carries the egg and larval stages of the eel is slowing down and changing direction because of Global Warming.  The changes there will certainly affect the world, since smoked eel is a mainstay of European cuisine and Japanese sushi is based on eel.  But the changes in world climate control dependent on the Gulf Stream will hit cicilization extrememly hard.  And sooner than we think.   On Warming seas make strong storms stronger, says new study posted 1 year, 2 months ago 5 Responses

"Natural" Selection

I don't know how jabailo explains the appearance of 'fossils' inside coal seams (evidence of their hydrocarbon origins) but he is so smart and has such interesting and authoritative connections that I figure he must have some logical explanation for their existence there.  Like, God created them when He laid those seams under the Earth? On Consumers express renewed interest in natural-gas vehicles posted 1 year, 3 months ago 20 Responses

Assumptions

"Mindset" can easily be changed by a good PR man from the majority of us preferring "A" into wanting "B" but can just as quickly be changed back by another good PR man.

But science deals with actual truth, not perceptions nor opinions nor preferences.  Only science showed the medical profession that washing their hands between patients could save lives.  Only science could put instant communication wirelessly between people on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

And only science can prove that Global Warming is real, is dangerous, and will affect all of us sooner than we think.  If people's "mindset" cannot be changed by truth, what's the point of thinking?  Might as well eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.  

Des Emery

Biofuels

Perhaps the real problem is not buried somewhere in the World Bank vaults, or scribbled on the blackboards of different Universities, or even growing in neat rows in farmers' fields all over the world.

Maybe the long-established and well-respected system of capitalism we have known in the past is developing signs of old age, dementia, and other symptoms of illogical brain-rot.

We are growing more corn, and this forces the price to rise.  On the other hand, we are growing fewer soybeans, but this also forces the price to rise.   So the basic premise on which capitalism was justified is turned on its head.  Under this new rubric, we damned if we do, but damned if we don't.  

I wonder then who actually wins?

Des Emery

Profit

When oil companies can post outasight profits, report lower consumption, and still insist that they do not control prices, the rest of the title of this blog definitely applies.

Des Emery

Corporate and Income Taxes

An alternative I hardly ever see considered is the removal (gradually, to lessen the shock) of all corporate taxation and the simultaneous increase of personal income tax derived from "interest and investment."

Shareholders would find that a graduated tax rate would be incentive for them to pressure corporations to invest their profits in lower prices, more R and D, higher employment, while the same shareholders would still receive stable and moderate "return on investment."

Des Emery

No Relief in Sight

Dilip Hiro's book seems to be as non-judgmental as possible, attributing the current upheaval in oil prices to 'normal' fluctuations.

Maybe. But speculators appear to have been the only segment of society which has benefited from the frenzy.  The market has become a gambler's heaven instead of a method to provide funding from the public to any particular venture, with reward commensurate to risk.  

BTW, the 'oil shock' of 1973-74 was caused by a v-p at Exxon in New York who said that he was not going to pay "those Ay-Rabs" in OPEC (who incidentally actually owned the oil) the prices they were asking.  His attitude prompted them to jack up the asking price into then strato
spheric rates, triggering the oil shock.

People in cars lined up at gas stations, waiting for hours for a fill-up.  The auto industry began laying off workers, who cancelled appliance and furniture purchases, starting more lay-offs in those industries, and recession escalated.

The "Market" is actually a very temperamental boss, prone to screaming tantrums, and cannot be relied upon to ever do 'the right thing' preferring to cut its own throat rather than develop a cogent plan of action to maintain stability.

Des Emery

No Study Needed

I agree with Wolverine.  No further determination of the reality of Global Warming is required.  What is needed urgently is reducing the amount of heat we humans generate needlessly.  

We must acknowledge that there is a huge differential between transferring existing heat (like solar, geothermal and similar types) from  permanent sources into energy, and in producing more heat (the internal combustion engine) from already stored sources (petroleum, coal, natural gas) in converting that heat into energy.

Now we are considering 'sequestering' the carbon that was stored over a period of millions of years, millions of years ago, by pumping CO2 back into the Earth in empty oilwells.

All we have to do is reduce our easy use of carbon by finding our energy somewhere else, like electricity from fission, or fusion, on Earth or from the Sun.    On Russian researchers abandon shrinking ice floe posted 1 year, 4 months ago 6 Responses

The Boreal World

May I be the first to welcome caniscandida to Canada?  The Maritime Provinces he mentions are among the most beautiful parts of the world, but  unfortunately they no longer contain the Boreal Forests.  

 Most of those trees were logged in past centuries to provide the masts for the ships that carried European civilization around the world.  Even the Boreal Forest in northern Ontario is no longer pristine.

The reason for McGuinty's protection has more to do with First Nation (or aboriginal) concerns about mining companies being able to appropriate land without notice to the registered owner(s), mostly Indian Bands, in that area of the province.  On Ontario protects gigantic forest area posted 1 year, 4 months ago 6 Responses

GW

Max and the rest of Oz - I still think that Earth as a whole planet is warming.  Models, even mathematical ones, are notoriously uninformative when every, and I mean every influence is unable to be counted.

I guess when the title of the post is "G W stopped in 1998" I assumed it meant that G W was ended in 1998.  It would take a supercomputer to compile and correlate all the temperature changes in the atmosphere, the aquasphere, and the lithosphere. So I don't trust "facts" like the growth of the Mt. Shasta glaciation which can be explained to be a result of increased water vapour evaporation from the Pacific and therefore increased deposition of snow inland.  Or that GW has resulted in the 'slippage' of the glacial ice, as is evident in Greenland.

When something, anything, in nature appears to be "illogical"  it only means we don't have all the information required to come to a correct interpretation.  There is nothing in nature that is illogical.  That is one thing I meant when I said "written in stone,"

Solid H2O, ice, forms at Zero degrees centigrade, and what we call normal atmospheric pressure.  But the temperature of any particular amount of ice can vary wildly.  And ice is always less dense than liquid water, so its melt actually can increase the volume of water into which it melts.  Sea ice, thin and seasonal, can spread over a larger area than glacial ice which forms into bergs with more permanent and deeper volumes.  Sea-ice will form during winter seasons from increased snowfall, which forms from increased evaporation, which forms from Global Warming.  So increased ocean coverage by sea-ice does indicate to me that there is G W occurring.

The Polar Bear question is moot, since it is being used politically rather than ecologically.  The NorthWest Passage will also become a political question if it develops into a regular ship passage.  What's under the Arctic Ocean may become the issue the rest of the world has to deal with.

Evolution is a process which is always with us, as different species try to adapt to different environs.  Earth has endured several catastrophic happenings, including the cyclic formation and subsequent melt of 'ice ages.' Some catastrophes are sudden, like asteroid impact, while the cycles of freeze and thaw operate independently.

We are in a 'thaw' period right now, with the general retreat of land-locked glaciers scheduled to dry up most of our rivers eventually.  But that thaw period is being accelerated by human activity.  8 billion of us cannot help but influence the natural course of events, especially when we employ artificial means (internal combustion engines) to enable our movement all over the globe.  But I guess that's another subject for another day.  

Des Emery

Amtrak

A popular President only has to smile favourably on any particular project to get the backing of the general populace.

An un-popular President, like Bush, has to actively undermine public enterprise in order to impose his view.  On the other hand, he has to actually be quite secretive, hiding the truth from the voters, to bring the government into line with his private purposes.

Des Emery

GW

Thank you, Max and the others who supplied info about GW.  I hate to be a nit-picker, but in addition to general info, I always try to read something into the attitudes of both the proponents and the opponents of any particular subject.

I have learned over the course of many years that very little is actually "written in stone," that human beings have a propensity to exaggerate and  manipulate "the facts" in order to get a desired or pre-determined response to a particular problem, and that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

In this case, I have no argument with numbers or graphs or opinions, all of which are certainly subject to "interpretation," but which should be presented as uncritically as possible.  Unfortunately, that does not seem to be happening with either side here.  

Some things that are "written in stone" are not contemplated here.  There are huge differences between ice, sea-ice and glacial ice, including temperature, mass, composition, etc.  This alone throws computations out of whack when considering the rate of melt.  

The picture of the state of the Earth cannot be  compartmentalized, but should be seen as a kind of "panorama" of effects.  And the co-incidence of real-time events has to worked into the equations, not just dismissed as "interesting but separate" items.  

Des Emery

Whack-A-Mole

As I have read CO2 sequestration, empty oilwells would be pumped full of the gas, to be stored within the deep rock.

I really have no idea of the comparative cost of capturing CO2 from smokestacks, transporting it to storage sites, and pumping it underground or in devising a system that just destroys it.  

Surely if people contemplate electrolysis of H2O to obtain the hydrogen as a fuel, decomposition of CO2 could be considered as a way to eliminate its threat to the atmosphere?

P.S.  I am not a troll.  At least, not when I last looked in the mirror.

Des Emery

Global Warming

Why in Hell's half-acre don't the bunch of you guys toss the quibbles out the window, and while you're at it, take a good look around.  Maybe the evidence you can see with your own eyes is more reliable than you think.

Like the disappearance (melt) of glacial ice all over the world, from Alaska, Greenland, Canada, to Borneo and equatorial Africa.  The snows of Kilimanjaro are going, going gone, and there is only one glacier left on Borneo's mountainous interior, where there were nine recorded at the end of WWII.

BTW, I trust you are using the correct method of recording temperature change.  Annual linear graphs are not reliable.  Averages have to be computed in cycles, that is (for instance) from l970 to l979, then from l971 to 1980, then from 1972 to 1981, and so on.  Comparisons between the results then mean something.

Des Emery

Oil Prices Will Go...Up?

Of course oil prices will continue to rise.  No one has any real incentive to put into place the controls that are becoming more and more required to return control of the marketplace to real investors instead of allowing speculators to thrive on the volatility of market manipulations.  In actuality, there are plans underway (before Nov) to obscure further those speculations and remove them from public observation.

It is easy enough to blame "foreign" countries, as Exxon blamed "those Ay-rabs" for the l976 crisis.  One of the Exxon executives decided that he was not going to pay what the owners of the oil wanted and that they would just have to take what he offered. They immediately jacked up the price and the USA shut down.

OPEC is more prepared to strike a bargain now, but with the current Iraq government under siege to force the Bush/Cheney solution that situation could change any time.

But with the cumulative change in world-wide climate, food shortages will soon result in human migrations more disruptive to civilisation than we can imagine.  

Des Emery

"There is no box"

But there really is.  And the lid is coming down on us pretty fast.  Global Warming will make all the current estimates and projections moot.  

Basing future plans on present conditions has always been seen as a reasonable plan of action.  But changing weather patterns worldwide make things like desert-based solar mirrors and wind-power turbines iffy propositions at best, and lead to estimates of "produced power" way, way below what we may have originally hoped for, and simultaneously wildly exaggerated difficulties in constructing and maintaining the installations, based on current weather conditions which will not apply in the near future.

Turbines, in addition to the steel and aluminum required in their assembly, also take a huge amount of cement for stabilisation (especially in the event of hurricane-force winds and/or eroding rains)  Cement powder is a tremendous source of polluting energy in its initial production.

Solar arrays occupy much too much acreage for the power output which they produce.  Individual roof-top installations work well in certain climates, but not so well in others.

Many small nuclear plants could be individually removed from the stream of power-production for any repair or rejuvenation required without detrimentally affecting the whole grid.  Government ownership or supervision could be imposed on any private source of nuclear power without any opposition, simply because it's nuclear and deserves adequate control of quality and price.  And housed within buildings, nuclear would not be subject to the vagaries of the weather fluctuations we can positively expect soon.  And buildings can also be earthquake-proofed from the get-go.  

There is not an awful lot of time left for us to come up some solution.  We have to act now.

Des Emery

Where the Farmed Things Are

Imagine that!  Private enterprise made a mistake!  That's OK, just laugh it off and post a recipe for those "lucky" enough to snag an escapee.

Can you describe the recrimination that any government agency would have to endure if it allowed such a slip-up to happen?

But then, there is nothing worse than a government that is run by private enterprisers.   On 30,000 farmed salmon escape off B.C. coast, endangering wild stocks posted 1 year, 4 months ago 12 Responses

Amtrak, et al...

Well, Bill, you asked why the government should be in the passenger train business.  But you forgot to add, why should the government be in the mail delivery business, door-to-door?  Why in the vehicle restriction business (via licensing preventing vehicle use by certain groups)?  Why in the space exploration business (handing out million-dollar prizes to millionaire contestants)?  Why indeed in the military business (Oh, I forgot about Blackwater, sorry)?  

Why is the government involved in maintaining the country's borders? What 'good' is served by the FBI and the CIA?  Should the government be involved in the people's everyday life only to the extent that it endorses delivery of goods and services for the benefit of the private enterprise which may or may not choose to be the agent for that delivery?

Finally, Bill, who pays your bills?  Are you just against Government involvement on general political principles, or would you benefit financially from government dis-engagement from Amtrak?

Des Emery

Oil Exploration and Speculation

Wolverine - this subject has everything to do with the natural environment.  There aren't many human constructs visible from space, but the Alberta Tar Sands is reported to be one.  And the question of off-shore drilling in the future in a supposed ice-free Arctic Ocean is becoming more and more weighted in favour pro rather than in favour anti.

Another point -- remember, when we're talking about "oil" we're not just talking "gasoline" but every bit of plastic in our lives, an invaluable, cheap (heretofore) base product in almost everything, including vehicles like cars, trucks, and SUVs.

I respect Sean Casten's opinions.  Except his seeming defense of the status quo in relation to the stock market.  A simple regulation that mandates any purchaser to retain "ownership" of purchased stock, current or future, for a set period of time, three months (the usual 'quarter' term for reportage) or six months, or whatever, as a minimum, would result in a slowdown of the volatility of the marketplace, a volatility that is the basis for the gambling that is the hallmark of the practice now.  And it would re-assert the supremacy of the individual over the cold rule of the Marketplace.

Des Emery

Obama and McCain

They could both be right on, you know.  Obama correctly would tax the profits made (not actually 'earned') by the oil companies and refuse to grant them tax credits.  At the same time, McCain is correct in pimping nuclear power as inherently "clean" (my quotation marks).  

The tax money from oil profits should be returned to the people who paid it by way of income tax credits, and emission-free nuclear power would drop the cost of electricity to the public by way of market abundance.On McCain and Obama tout very different energy policies posted 1 year, 5 months ago 2 Responses

The Future and Global Warming.

I'm very happy that jabailo's electricity bill has been reduced, and that he attributes the "savings" to Global Warming.  

But may I remind him to put the savings away safely somewhere for now, since he will undoubtedly be needing it to help pay for his air conditioning in the summertime.

BTW, the violent windstorms now being experienced in areas of the USA for the first time - see any newscast - are only going to get worse as any day's individual weather becomes affected by the warming global trends which are being documented everywhere except in the minds of the deniers.On U.N. report forecasts continued high food prices for the next decade posted 1 year, 6 months ago 11 Responses

Global Warming

It is always best to listen to opposing viewpoints in any discussion.  But when one side of the argument presents false information, whether intentionally or derived from mistaken bases, then that side should expect that all of its 'evidence' should be ignored.  When that evidence has been purchased by special interests it should be presumed to be false, without other verification required or argued.  

Everything I have seen about the reality of Global Warming has been proven to be true, while everything denying it has the whiff of 'green' about it somewhere, proving the old adage that everything has it's price, and denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Des Emery

Peak Oil

Not only doth methink that LGT protests too much, he obviously got distracted from the message by the medium (apologies to Marshall MacLuhan and to Wm. Shakespeare also) and was reduced to making points that were essentially pointless in his efforts to demolish the accuracy of the video's words.

His weak attempts at irony (?) can be illustrated by two simple examples.  He pretends not to understand the concept of 'Peak Oil' as if it were some kind of airy fairy tale, and he dismisses the author's concern about the current (and growing) shortage of food out of hand as if it were not even relevant to the discussion.

Anyone can turn his back to the truth, but then reality will always get you in the end.  

Des Emery

Fertilizer

Jonas (posters could get his gristname right) is an angry man, and has good cause to be so, given the view of a paternal 'civilization' that he has had imposed upon him.

There are many solutions to certain problems, and he appears to have seized upon the idea that fertilizer which undoubtedly increases agricultural yield is one answer to overcome poverty.  

Other solutions to the same problem are proposed by other posters, like restricting population growth, industrialization, medicine, et al, but those solutions can be interpreted as just more paternalism.  Jonas obviously feels that self-sufficiency is the immediate answer that can easily be accomplished.  And he's right, of course.  Pie in the sky has never fed anyone.  Food is actually the prime mover of all human advancement (check out the diversion of food to ethanol production and the concurrent rise in price and reduction in supply from people to the internal combustion engine) and Jonas has a point to make.

My own opinion is that the problem of Global Warming has started to overtake the seriousness of any other problem facing us today.  All tropical lands will face accelerated desertification and the subsequent migration of their populations northward,and that will happen sooner than we think.   On Nitrogen fertilizer is in short supply posted 1 year, 7 months ago 53 Responses

450 ppm

Just a couple of comments --  it's a good thing to have a destination in mind when you plan a trip and you have all the time in the world to think deeply about it.   But when you're running from a fire or a flood, you don't really care which way is the road to the promised land, you just get the hell out.

So instead of arguing about which 'wedge' is the most appropriate, why not just get busy and build them all. Before catastrophe (Global Warming) arrives with a vengeance.

And for electricity,whether wind or solar or nuclear sourced, build a grid that will accept input from all producers and provide output for all users, letting the electrons surge back and forth as required, so there is no 'up' or 'down' time involved.  

Des Emery

Religion and ...

Some people seem to have no difficulty relating to 11 dimensions, to a concept of light as a wave or as a particle depending upon the measurer, to 'information' passing instantaneously between two 'entangled' locations after 'dis-entanglement' has occurred.  

But they dismiss as 'nonsense' the human need for 'rules.'  Apparently we should instinctively do the right thing, sans incentive.  Sans incentive in this case means we have no free will, being directed in our behaviour as ants or bees or clams act in accordance with inborn drives.

Acceptance of being 'bound' - the literal meaning of  the word, religion - is the one common feature of all human beings; it is our universal identification.

The fact that we debase our humanity in so many ways so frequently only serves to emphasize how our sense of religion, the unseen hand of God, will lift us up if we let it.

Des Emery

Global Warming

is as 'real' as the stock market.  Check the year 1900 for stock prices.  Daily increases, daily decreases. Check 1929 - daily increases, daily decreases.  Check the 1990s - same thing.  Check today's Dow averages.  Variability is the lifeforce which runs Wall St.  But today's market is far and away so much higher than it was in 1900.  And that is in spite of the tremendous crash in 1929, and other frequent crashes since then, including the minor one we're experiencing right now.

  If you can't make the connection, I'll spell it out.  It doesn't matter how high temperatures go, or how low they sink, they are increasing globally - globally, that is - on average.

 The same way the stock market has increased, on average.  The variability of the stock market depends upon individual decisions to hold or to sell, and global warming depends upon individual decisions to buy an SUV or walk, to turn the thermostat either up or down, to leave all the lights on or to turn them off.  

And have you checked out Kilimanjaro recently?    The top of that old volcano used to be covered in snow and ice, many metres deep.  The cup of the cone is now exposed because of melt, and villagers at the foot of the mountain are experiencing drought conditions where abundant water used to flow.  And the last glacier in the mountains of Papua New Guinea is almost gone; the equatorial island used to count several glaciers hidden in the mountains and recorded in the 1800s by explorers.

Science has known about glacial retreat for many decades, but is now alarmed at the rapid increase in melt everywhere in the world.  Do yourself a favour and check out 'glaciers' on Google.    

Des Emery

climate change

I have always liked Mary Matalin but I have never agreed with her promotion of conservative values, and this one is way out of line.

We all live in a closed system -- a big one, to be sure, but one as closed as nature can devise.  Now, overlaying a natural global balance which swings between cool and warm cycles, we have increased human population in an exponential curve which surges more and more rapidly upwards and every new birth increases Global Warming by 98.6F degrees.

We also have dragged a tremendous number of warm animals out of the jungles with our civilization, from horses and cows to cats and dogs, each contributing to sway the global balance toward the hot side of the scale.  And we pour more heat into the atmosphere from our use of machinery (internal combustion engines to move us, electrical generation to cook our food, while cooling our beer at the same time).  

I had a cat once.  Used to lie on the dining room table at mealtime while we ate, stretching slowly forward inch by inch.  Then, as she sat up and yawned, one paw 'accidentally' swiped the butter dish and of course she had to lick the paw clean.  That's the way with our contribution to Global Warming.  Little by little it will advance with our permission, until it overwhelms us.On United Nations calls climate change a matter of human rights posted 1 year, 9 months ago 10 Responses

Global Warming

jabailo must have a lot of fun looking for dissident opinions to events in real life.  How would he disabuse the 500 or so investors who are prepared to put their money where their mouth is and look for solutions to the problem of climate change?  

The IPCC is not a one-man contrarian operation either.  Its many, many real scientists do not rely on obfuscation or un-understandable statistics to state the obvious -- the icecaps and glaciers are melting around the world releasing water into the atmosphere and eventually into the oceans raising sea-levels; measurable amounts of CO2 are co-related to this melt; the same measurable amounts of CO2 are also co-related to mankind's increase in the use of fossil fuels over the past few centuries.  It should not be difficult, even for a non-scientist, to accept the anthropogenic cause for the result.

As for the limp argument that CO2 is 'the breath of life' and therefore should not be feared, it is wise to remember that it is just as easy to drown in an inch of water in your back-yard as it is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  Too much of a good thing...On There was no consensus about global cooling in the '70s, says study posted 1 year, 9 months ago 12 Responses

Group of Seven

It is very telling that the 'economies' of the world all promote 'market-driven' ideologies geared to private enterprise success.  Until, that is, those ideologies lead them down the garden path.  Then, of course, private enterprise inevitably turns to governments for rescue from their overweening greed, and still couches their demands in economist double-talk.  

The solution to global warming will not be found by throwing money (an economist's favourite phrase) at it in expectations of somehow "making a decent profit."

Climate change will cost everyone an awful lot, and a lot of us our very lives.  On G7 countries call for clean-technology fund for developing nations posted 1 year, 9 months ago 1 Response

climate change

Just a couple of notes -

1.  Quoting 'facts and figures' which can't be independently verified since most people don't have geology, meteorology, biology, et al in their curricula, requires a leap of faith which shouldn't be expected by glib protesters to convert adherents. Pictures are still worth a thousand words.

2.  Sure, CO2 is a normal, natural and necessary part of the atmosphere, allowing plant life to breathe and exhale the Oxygen we use as animals.  H2O is also normal, natural and necessary, but I remind all of you that you can drown in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean or in an inch of water in your own back yard.  But you'll be just as dead in either case.

Des Emery

He Re-Cycles???

In days of yore, TV commercials for a certain new breakfast cereal featured older brothers forcing a younger one to try it first, before they'd consider eating it.  "Hey, Mikey!" they said in amazement.  "He likes it!"  

I think the principle illustrated is called "Leading By Example."  George Bush should try it along with the rest of the free world, and maybe the recalcitrant others would be shamed into joining us.On Bush rehashes same ol' environmental ideas in final State of the Union speech posted 1 year, 10 months ago 21 Responses

Nuclear vs. coal

Good choice, Umbra, die by bullet or die by knife.  A better, more modern choice, would be "Die quickly by action, or slowly by inaction?"  The status quo is untenable and a choice has to be made now, with the risk of dying quickly duly considered, and provided for in future plans, or else we should prepare for global drought (the Sahara and other deserts are measurably expanding in exponential rates), global flooding (melting sea-ice, glacial ice and snow cover [not snow amounts] is measurable along coastal areas, especially noticeable in places like Bangladesh and the Netherlands), fresh-water depletion, deforestation, and other long-term ills.

Yes indeed, nuclear power can be dangerous but it is the only energy source that can produce  sustainable, steady, emissionless electricity in the prodigious amounts 6 billion of us require to live on the planet.  Many small reactors feeding into a grid, co-generating heat and electricity for home and industry and pumping power into batteries to replace the internal combustion engine make the most sense to get us out of our present decline toward disaster.  Big is not always beautiful, and survival, not cost, should be the deciding factor in choosing our path. On Umbra on nuclear vs. coal posted 1 year, 10 months ago 25 Responses

Forethought Nuke

Thank you, Vikingsson, for the elaboration you give to my post.  I agree that co-generation to make use of the heat produced after electricity has been generated is also an imperative.  Many small plants would definitely make such use more efficient being closer to the ultimate user, and would make power generation even less costly for the consumer.  And the electricity produced could power the pumps moving the water, another consolidation to be considered.  And another reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions which are a consequence of any power production except nuclear.  Solar, hydro, wind, etc., seem to be emission-free, but would never produce enough electricity to replace the internal combustion engine as would nuclear-generated power.On Nuclear power plants in U.S. Southeast may face shutdowns due to drought posted 1 year, 10 months ago 5 Responses

Nukes and water

Do coal-fired plants also require vast quantities of water as a coolant or is just emitting vast quantities of CO2 preferable?  

Since nuclear plants produce electricity to be distributed by wire perhaps those plants should be located where there are 'vast quantities' of H2O available, like on ocean-front locations.

Many small nuclear plants would reduce the cost of building new installations to amortization over separate time periods, reduce their appeal to terrorist attacks, and condense the amounts of nuclear waste (the reactor rods)into easily stored caches to be utilized at some time in the future when we have figured out how to re-activate them.

Big is not always beautiful.On Nuclear power plants in U.S. Southeast may face shutdowns due to drought posted 1 year, 10 months ago 5 Responses

Sea Rise

The IPCC, composed of good scientists as it should be, is automatically a conservative group of about 2500 people.  It has been around for 25 years or longer, examining the evidence for abnormal global warming.  The key word here is "abnormal."

The difficulty is fixing a time line for the events forecast by their studies.  The fact of their general "conservativism" downplays the urgency of the situation.  Their own surprise at the rapidity of change should alert the rest of us to the immediacy of the problem.  

If we look at the same pictures they do, we should realize that the IPCC is way off in its estimate of the time we have left to actually do something about the future right now.  It's later  -  much later  -  than you think! On Sea-level rise this century could be twice IPCC's predictions, says research posted 1 year, 11 months ago 2 Responses

Good Car-ma

Of course mass transit and cycling should be promoted, and heavily, along with changes in city and rural living habits.

One of the reasons to eliminate that old-fashioned "infernal combustion" engine is the secondary effect it would have in slowing down civilization in general to a more moderate, healthful and peaceful pace in which living well is more important than living fast.On House Democrats agree to raise auto fuel economy to 35 mpg posted 1 year, 11 months ago 17 Responses

global warmig

There is more evidence showing up regularly all over the place to indicate the danger posed to the entire world by global warming and the accelerated pace at which it is advancing toward us.

Recent studies in the north show that sea ice (not fresh water locked into glaciers and icebergs eons ago) melts far faster than the ice cubes we drop into our Scotch On The Rocks, the kind of ice most people associate with frozen water.  Sea Ice is formed when the temperature of brine is dropped below 0 centigrade. The chemically saturated water forms into channels within the ice, supporting small lifeforms and providing a food source for small fish and seabirds in the margins between open water and the edges of the new sea ice.  

Because this ice can be considered to be softer and spongier than ordinary ice it also melts much more easily and faster.  And that is the problem.  A little rise in temperature overall results in disappearing ice cover and changes the balance of life, resulting in fewer predators (seabirds must travel longer and longer distances between shorebound nestlings and the feeding grounds out at the retreating margins between open water and sea ice).  The melt rate goes up rapidly and will result in more liquid water much sooner than would be predicted IF all ice exhibited the same properties.

The North West Passage will open soon, but will become unsuitable for commerce just as quickly.

Des Emery

Sk,eptics

Andrew -  If you have already told your class you were going to find a GW skeptic to debate with, then I guess you might have to arrive in class wearing black and sorrowfully announce that all the skeptics seem to be as dead as their arguments.  Then point out to the class that the best way to win an argument is to have opponents fade into the woodwork, the same way Christ defended the woman from being stoned  - "Is there no one here to condemn you?  Then neither do I."

Des Emery

Environment

CO2ls a major problem with the atmosphere, although there are some others.  But, the internal combustion engine is the main culprit in the proliferation of CO2, and its replacement by an all-electric motor for individual use is the only right and proper way to maintain our current way of life while restoring the balance between animals and plants, allowing animals to breathe in Oxygen, and out Carbon Dioxide and the opposite for plant life.

Small nuclear plants spread out widely across the countryside would generate enough heat to boil water, the pressure of the steam so produced would drive turbines which would make electric generation a steady and reliable source of power.Electric cars would 'fill-up' on electricity at the presently established 'service stations' after their conversion from gasoline supply depots to electricity supply depots.  Nanobatteries would allow re-charge from the stations at about the same speed as a car gastank can be filled now.  Think 'Buy a volt instead of a gallon.'  

Secondary advantages would include fireless auto accidents, fewer deaths and disabilities, reduced auto insurance, easier operation, less wear and tear on infrastructure, and on and on.  Above all, there would be no reliance on fossil fuels, all of which produce pollution and atmospheric imbalance.

Unfortunately, hydrogen remains difficult to make, to store, to compress into liquid form, and would make any accident at all into a major catastrophe. Its use would also allow the continuation of the production of the internal combustion engine which has remained relatively inefficient from its invention well over a hundred years ago. On Green groups battle over climate bills in the Senate posted 2 years ago 13 Responses

apple cores

Brendan, please accept my heartfelt apologies for the unnecessary put-down I sent earlier.  Actually, you are correct in making sure the leftover fruit is buried, not just dropped behind you somewhere.  My mistake.  We who have so much can often take nature's largesse for granted.  It is good to see someone put a value on something so many of us treat as nothing but garbage to be gotten rid of.  On Umbra on tossing food waste posted 2 years, 1 month ago 23 Responses

Disposing of organic garbage

Brendan, Brendan  -  c'mon, admit that your little 'habit' is really just extended laziness.  After all, you would expend the same energy just dropping the leftovers as you stroll to school (where you might learn that good manners make good sense) as you do in popping them into the bushes.  But the bushes allow you to 'think' you are being ecological in your laziness.  

As many of the other posters tell you ecology means actual work.  It's not easy.  But surely the school has a re-cycling program  -  just  eat a little more slowly and make it last until you get there.On Umbra on tossing food waste posted 2 years, 1 month ago 23 Responses

Clean Energy

This is an extremely complex subject and so there are probably no easy solutions.  Can energy sources be divided into parts?  Of course, there is "clean" and "dirty" energy, but in addition there is "electrical" and "mechanical" both of which can be sub-divided into "source" and "use" either or both of which can be "clean" or "dirty."  So it is not an easy choice - you can install solar panels on your house to give you clean energy but are those panels produced by clean manufacturers and does your use of them ensure their clean purpose?

Oil is now getting to be in short supply although their are still many potential sources (sub North Pole?) around.  And auto manufacturers prefer the internal combustion engine.  Coal is available for the next 1,000 plus years, although we no longer see coal-fired steam engines tootling over the rails hauling coal from mines all over North America.  Diesel (oil) transportation is preferred.  Electricity, the cleanest energy, is produced by coal (or natural gas) the dirtiest source.

Unless we are prepared to see and endure the complete upset of our current capitalistic system of rick and reward where the risk has been transferred to the customer (Mattel) and the reward maintained for the corporation, we are all at risk from global events, like volatility in temperature norms.

If we are producing too much carbon dioxide the most obvious, simple solution is breaking that gas into its two components, the solid carbon and the gas oxygen, sequestering the solid and releasing the oxygen back into the atmosphere.  But you'll have to figure out a way to make a profit from that process before it will even be considered.On Coal industry asks for still more handouts, and Washington lends an ear posted 2 years, 1 month ago 6 Responses

Another Read From Hansen

I'm not an engineer, mechanical or chemical, but I have respect for those who can quote and understand figures and apply them with reason.  I can quickly accept what engineers or scientists tell us about climate change.  In all my reading on the subject I have not seen a rational approach to combat the over-abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Plant trees, yes.  Sequester carbon in mines or under the oceans, yes.  But how to take control of the CO2 and reduce the amount of it around the world, no.

How about a scientific process, engineered to 'split' the CO2 into the gas, Oxygen, and the solid, Carbon?  The Carbon could easily be collected, transported and sequestered underground, while Oxygen could be released into the atmosphere, helping us to keep breathing.  Who would pay?  Well, all of us, by way of some kind of taxation, perhaps applied to Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Automotive, those who contribute the most to Global Warming.

Des Emery

Regulation

Polamca makes a good case against self-regulation, noting that it allows 'opting out' of certain responsibilities.  But one of the prime responsibilities of good government is looking after the physical health and welfare of the individual, rather than the financial health and welfare of the corporation.  Rules and regulations should be applied stringently by authority to corporate activities when individuals are affected adversely.  Debacles like Enron, Worldcom, Nortel and others would be easily averted by the proper application of rules and regulations without political considerations.  So would Iraq.On Industry to Bush administration: "Please regulate me" posted 2 years, 2 months ago 2 Responses

Freeman Dyson and Global Warming

Prof. Dyson makes a very good point about topsoil acting as an agent to adsorb excess carbon and carbon dioxide.  But so does the Amazon Rainforest and other rainforests around the world.  So does the huge Boreal Forest in Canada and the few other Boreal Forests around the world.

Unfortunately the world's rainforests are rapidly being cleared out of the way by Man's efforts to make room for himself and his machines, both of which contribute to extra carbon and carbon dioxide emissions rather than storage.  In Canada the pine tree beetle has killed and is killing the great majority of Lodgepole Pine in the forests and then will settle for other kinds of pine tree as they eliminate their favourite as food, leaving the carbon standing as dead trees.  Carbon dioxide   is not absorbed when chlorophyll has been killed.

While the destruction of rainforests is man=made, the pine beetles' onslaught is a direct result of Global Warming as winter temperatures do not stay below freezing far enough and long enough now to ensure that the beetles are killed off.

The fact that few of Man's race appears to be personally concerned - though each one should be - does not make Prof. Dyson's position logical.  When there are not enough lifeboats available, ask the travelers on the Titanic if now is a good time to re-arrange the deck-chairs.

Des Emery

It ain't Natural

Kate Sheppard naturally takes a close look at the effects Global Warming will have on the USA, focusing on the Parks in every part of the country.  Global Warming, however, is not limited to such a near-sighted view of the world but affects every continent without exception.  The acceleration of the icemelt process she worries about in the future is unfortunately happening right now, and like any acceleration just keeps on going faster and faster. Estimates of forty or fifty years  before Global Warming goes out of control are proven wrong but still get used by politicians, etc., to soothe the public and avoid the necessity of doing something - anything - now!

The Canadian Arctic melt-down is well ahead of former time estimates, and Greenland's icesheet is falling into the northern Atlantic at a phenomenal rate.  When the movie, 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro,' was shot in Africa fifty years ago there was a lot of snow and ice contained in that glacier; now there is no snow and only a little wall of glacial ice for travelers to see.  Time is no longer on our side.

Des Emery