Live Earth !

Gollevainen · Jul 10, 2007

well like I said in my first post, the green house effect and its harmfull cosequences have been aknowlidged by the scientist since early 90's but those talks were ignored by the owner-class power elements.

The issue isent the fact that why the Earth's climate is warming, we all know that. We (well, the scientist...) knows also that the pollution creates green-house effect that will increase the speed of the warming. Wether the current warming is entirely becouse of our pollution, it isent in anycase any harm to us if we cut down the wasting of our sparse resources.

Jeff is rigth when he says about the climatical cylces and how the climate has warmed in the acient past and how big effect Volcanoes can have. Life will go on, even if all land living creatures above microschopic scale are whiped away, but that doesent sound really conforting to say to our kids. The whole issue is that now we have a change to do something...ten to twenty years that change migth be lost.
In overal the global warming has raised guestions about the powers that capital-owners have in todays world and its good to have atleast some channel that keeps questioning this current system's legimacy and usefullness.
Perhaps if we go on the "Deep end" like Jeff said, and it will proven out to be false alarm sometime in distant future, It wouldnt be bad thing at all. Becouse if been realisitic, the "global" society that bases on market-economy and free capitalism cannot make the changes need to go to the "deep End".
If, by in cover of saving the planet we get rid of those two, along with blind-folded believe of the deity of money.......... I wouldnt mind at all

Scratch · Jul 10, 2007

If I'm correct there were 30.000 in Hamburg, not all that much, but it was a rainy day.

Sure you have to get a message out and have to invest in it.
But when those "superstars" travel around half the globe in privet jets and get driven to and from the concerts in the biggest limos on the planet, I just get a strange feeling.
It's like these live aid (?) things were the same "stars" get their flights payed, stay in the most luxurious hotels for free, get "thank you" presents worth thousands of dollars, then think it's an enormous sacrifice by them to act one and a half hours on stage "for free" and tell people "give your money to Africa".

Well, that of course doesn't generally appropriate. There are also smart and responsible prominents. It's just not the smartest way, IMO.

The thing with global warming is known for years now. The Kyoto protocol happened ten years ago now. And discussion started even before that. There seemed to be little interest back then. But the panic that is so widespread now is strange to me. Maybe just now one can make enough money with it that it's worth fueling it.
Talking about scientific findings in a factual way is important and will do it's part. But prophecies of the comming of the dooms day in the next decade don't help at all, since this will just make people who are sceptic anyway turn fully away. Same goes for telling people how to change their daily way of life in a too obstrusive way.
One can and should make suggestions and encourage to ask people themeselves do I really need this and that all the time, or can I renounce something here. But be cautious.

Fact is, climate is changing. There seem to be at least scientific hints that mankind might have to do with it. If that is hard proof I just cannot tell.
But I think we are still even farther away from a proof that mankind has nothing at all to do with it.
Though the climate has changed thoughout earth's history time and time again, we have no empirical data on how a huge, developed human population would be able to deal with it.
In an age were consuming and economical growth is that much important, the economical implications of a changing climate might be troublesome.

But then again, the preservation of our home in space should probably be enough motivation. After all, we did not inherit the earth from our parrents, we borrowed it from our children.

If one finally isn't encouraged by that, and only can get so by direct imlications, energy independence should do it.
Generally the industrial coutries, to an even greater extant Europe and Japan I think, have to import the greatest part of their energy resources from outside. In the very most cases from unstable states/regions I don't want to rely on for energy security at all.
Noone can take us away the sun or the wind, or bio-fuels from our fields.

Hmm, finally it has again become much longer then I intended it to be ...

Jeff Head · Jul 10, 2007

Scratch said:
In an age were consuming and economical growth is that much important, the economical implications of a changing climate might be troublesome.

But then again, the preservation of our home in space should probably be enough motivation. After all, we did not inherit the earth from our parrents, we borrowed it from our children.

If one finally isn't encouraged by that, and only can get so by direct imlications, energy independence should do it.
Generally the industrial coutries, to an even greater extant Europe and Japan I think, have to import the greatest part of their energy resources from outside. In the very most cases from unstable states/regions I don't want to rely on for energy security at all.
Noone can take us away the sun or the wind, or bio-fuels from our fields.

Hmm, finally it has again become much longer then I intended it to be ...

Here's a great article by Joseph D’Aleo, former Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel.

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Should be required reading for anyone looking at the issue objectively.

As I have said, I have personally seen these agenda driven NGO and rabid environmental types create studies and science to fit their pre-concieved notions and then use that to further their ideology and cause, destroying the livelihoods of thousands in the process.

From the article:

IPCC Dubunk said:
Though the IPCC acknowledged these indirect UV and cosmic ray effects may be important (although a source of considerable uncertainty), they latched onto the small 0.1 percent change in the 11-year cycle and a single paper by Lean with Wang,(8) which used a new untested model approach suggesting the sun’s longer-term role is not as great, to cut back solar forcing by a factor of 7 from the 2001 prior assessment. This, despite the slew of peer reviewed papers showing the sun as more important, not less. This is this current report’s “Hockey Stick,” the original of which in 2001 did away with the great detective work of hundreds of the world’s best climatologists, and wiped out the medieval warm period and subsequent Ice Ages, making the current warming seem more important and man’s role more plausible. The Hockey Stick has since been totally debunked in numerous peer review papers and did not appear in the latest IPCC report. I am confident that this recent assessment’s downgrading of the solar effect will meet a similar fate.

After addressing the role ocean temperatures play in impacting climate – especially the occurrences of El Niños and La Niñas -- D’Aleo stated that the planet may actually be entering a new cooling phase rather than extending the current warming cycle:

There are indications, given both the 80-year and 180-year cycles, that the sun will be much less active over coming decades. The majority of solar cycle methods suggest the next cycle will be less than the last one, which itself was 20 percent less than the prior cycles. NASA (Hathaway), based on the observed slowing of the sun’s plasma flow, predicts that cycle 25, which peaks in 2022, could be the quietest in centuries. Remember that quiet cycles are cool cycles.

Also, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation increasingly shows signs of descending back into its cold mode. This, too, should result in global cooling. The Atlantic may have another decade to go before it cools again.

These three factors suggest a cooling is about to begin. In fact, there are a number of measures, such as ocean heat content (which has not increased in the last 4 years), satellite-derived atmospheric temperatures, and ocean and land temperatures, which are all showing a cooling period over the last 5 to 8 years. It is possible either 1998 or 2001 will end up being the peak of this current warm cycle.
Lost in all of this is the fact that we have had an optimum climate the last 30 years – with warmer temperatures, more rainfall, and increased CO2 – that has enabled us to grow more food in more places, and consume less energy than had the cold weather of the 60s and 70s persisted. Descending back into a little Ice Age has far greater negative consequences than a slow and relative minor warming. Crop failures and famines are more common due to dryness and cold, and the world would consume more energy for heating. We may look back at the late 20th and early 21st centuries as the golden years.

Future generations will shake their heads over how we failed to recognize a good thing when we had it and how science was hijacked by politics, environmentalism, and greed. We would be better off spending all our dollars and efforts on maximizing energy sources, new and old, than trying to eliminate a gas that does far more good than harm.

Gollevainen · Jul 11, 2007

All proclaims and models trying to seek out what will happen in the future are hazy and unclear from the simple fact that the earths ecosystem is just too huge and has a whole lotta variables.

But green house effect is undisputable physical phenominal which is actually one fundamental thing for making earth livable. The issue is that man produces huge ammount of gases (mainly CO2) which accelerates the phenominal. The ammount of those gases have increase so much after industrialism that its solid fact that they have some effect.

I've also heard about these theories of earht moving towards colder phase but those changes are stuff that you can determine in long range and wide research, taking account of centuries of annual climate results. Its not something you can "sense" in our lifetime. Also its uncertain wheter the man-made catalysation of the green house effect will "even things" or just ignore that and keep on warmong the globe. Reasonable studies have shown that the global temperatures have already risen few degrees since the industrial revolution.
One of the things that wonders me mostly is the sea current Golf. Its a current that brings warm water from south to north atlantic and is the main reason why eg. Norway is rather mild compared areas at the same hemisphere deeper in the continent. It practically makes the entire northern hemisphere livable. If the polar icemasses melts down and/or the foreverfrost in siberia melts down and increses the waterammount in the huge rivers what will it do to the Golf current? Several scientist have proclaimed that it may change the current so much that it stops and no more warm water/wheater is comming in here...then we are not talking about small ice-ages, but from the big one...

Its still IMO pointless to fight how much the global warming will change things around or not at all becouse the meassures to be taken against it presents in overall terms far reasonable and long-sighted thinking than the current "buy buy buy" mentality. Oil and other natural resources will end soon anyway and wont be renewed in our lifetime. Like Jeff Head said this changes will "destroy" thousends or more like millions of peoples way of life but IMO its about time. Its not that you are forced to go down living in gutters, only that you start pay attention to things you once ignored. Changes have to come! And its in long-term better to make it willingly now than to be forced to do it in the future when its too late preserve even some of those things you kept so precisous.

Jeff Head · Jul 11, 2007

Gollevainen said:
Like Jeff Head said this changes will "destroy" thousends or more like millions of peoples way of life but IMO its about time. Its not that you are forced to go down living in gutters, only that you start pay attention to things you once ignored. Changes have to come! And its in long-term better to make it willingly now than to be forced to do it in the future when its too late preserve even some of those things you kept so precisous.

Golly, you yourself have said that it is very difficult (if not impossible IMHO) to predict the long term future impact...and yet propose a whole lot of people changing their lifestyle and giving up what you say they cherish based on projections regarding the future. I am afraid that the level of changes discussed are not something that is going to happen without someone applying force.

I believe it is possible to willingly live a very comfortable life style and still use common sense and conservation principles. But that is not what people like Gore and others, most of them wholly out of their depth scientifically, propose. They are proposing radical change, and the UN treaties propose the same while giving a pass to some of the worst offenders.

My personal feelings coincide with what the meteroligist/climatoligist who used to work for the Weather Channel said. The hype regarding the nature of the problem and our ability to impact it in substantial ways is just hype and used for political and ideological gain by many of these people IMHO.

It is doubtdful that we on this forum are going to agree on such issues. I will not try and force others to adopt my view if others will not try and force me and mine to adopt theirs. That is where the trouble would begin. In my view and from my experience though, that is exactly what the people with extreme views about warming propose...and so I oppose them.

Anyhow, I have said more than I wanted to on this subject and will now happily get back to the purpose of the forum. This kind of topic will be debated endlessly here, just like it is out on the street.

Gollevainen · Jul 11, 2007

Well I understand your point of view. This is one of the eternity struggles currently out there...

Eventually its not much that the normal consumers can do, the effects of recycling bottles are rather marginal and far more sympolic than a real enviromental values. The thing that matters is the industries and powerplants and other issues which are more down to governmental supervision than to consumer awereness.
My point is that regardless wheter you belive to global warming, taking enviromental issues under consideration is important. I'm not talking about tree-hugging or other "green ideas" but that you are awere of your own living surrounding and that your actions will affect to it one way or another. Earth is a complex ecosystem but despite some of the looniest greens may think, we are with our factories, motorways and powerlines part of it. If we ignore the ground that we adjust, it will come back to haunt us. It's our own choise what kinda enviroment we live in. I'm born and raised here in the deep woods of Häme and thankfully I live in a country which has taken the enviromental issues seriously from the highest level of government. I've also daily meddling with the concrete actions what the Kioto treaty and other legistrative issues concerning the polution-restrictions due my work in big heating company.

Jeff Head · Jul 11, 2007

Gollevainen said:
Well I understand your point of view. This is one of the eternity struggles currently out there...

Eventually its not much that the normal consumers can do, the effects of recycling bottles are rather marginal and far more sympolic than a real enviromental values. The thing that matters is the industries and powerplants and other issues which are more down to governmental supervision than to consumer awereness.

Thanks Golly. The fact is, nations like Sweden, Finland, the UK, France, Britain, the United States and others are already doing their part. The US has very strict air and water quality restrictions for emissions from autos and factories and has, for its per capita production and consumption, among the cleanest air and water in the world.

Anyhow, as I said in my intial post...

Do not get me wrong. We should all try and do our best to practising good conservation and common sense protection of our ecosystem around us...we just do not need to go off the deep end, and we do not, IMHO, need to be too alarmist over it.

The majority of people in the United States do that, as evidenced by the conditions here. In the last 20 years there are those who are now tryinbg to use our own common sense and successful record to try and force more on the people here and folks are not going to stand for it.

Best regards.

Finn McCool · Jul 11, 2007

Jeff Head said:
Thanks Golly. The fact is, nations like Sweden, Finland, the UK, France, Britain, the United States and others are already doing their part. The US has very strict air and water quality restrictions for emissions from autos and factories and has, for its per capita production and consumption, among the cleanest air and water in the world.

Thank's for pointing that out Jeff. The US could be a whole lot dirtier. Compare that to China. We still have more emissions than any other country but we are at a point in our industrial development where, I believe, we will start to reorder our priorites. Europe is farther along in this then the US is. Basically what I'm trying to say is that all throughout our history we have valued increased production of goods and increased availability of land and power more than we valued a healthy enviroment. At some point the average person in our society will have enough material goods so that they decide they are willing to sacrifice increased availability of those goods for a cleaner enviroment which is in a way a good.

Also this question of industrial development indicates that at some point we will have enough impetus in society as a whole to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy (prices will make it economical). Really its a question of if that will happen in time to alleviate the affects of global warming.

By the way I think that corn ethanol is a big sham and that a hypothetical cellulose ethanol (produced from agricultural waste, more efficent then even sugarcane ethanol) fuel is the best solution to the "enegy problem" that is within reach.

The real enviromental issue for the 21st century is that there simply is not enough resources for a planet for a constantly increasing world population to live the way that your average American does.

sumdud · Jul 11, 2007

I have some questions:

Wouldn't we reduce global warming if we dumped our soda and beer cans in the ocean? All the excess light from the sun will hit the cans and be reflected back into space!

And of course, wouldn't eating meat also help? You are reducing CO2 producers!

(And can anyone tell me what a clean/low-emissions car is?) Hmm, weird how we have too little ozone up and too much here! (WT* is that???)

As for transportation, America isn't exactly Public Transportation friendly, the city plans are pro-street, with single houses on the street, so the nearest bus stop is usually blocks away from your house and destination. Also, we usually lack a good train systems, and buses are prone to traffic, carries less people, and you should see how people board the bus here in San Francisco.... *shivers*

You can't walk or ride a bike there!

Say wha?

The_Zergling · Jul 12, 2007

sumdud said:
I have some questions:

Wouldn't we reduce global warming if we dumped our soda and beer cans in the ocean? All the excess light from the sun will hit the cans and be reflected back into space!

And of course, wouldn't eating meat also help? You are reducing CO2 producers!

(And can anyone tell me what a clean/low-emissions car is?) Hmm, weird how we have too little ozone up and too much here! (WT* is that???)

As for transportation, America isn't exactly Public Transportation friendly, the city plans are pro-street, with single houses on the street, so the nearest bus stop is usually blocks away from your house and destination. Also, we usually lack a good train systems, and buses are prone to traffic, carries less people, and you should see how people board the bus here in San Francisco.... *shivers*

Say wha?

I'm assuming your first two suggestions are satirical ^^.

A low-emissions car... I would say some of the best examples we currently have are solar cars and hybrids. Obviously they have their flaws and limitations, but energy efficiency-wise they're a lot better than the common vehicles on the road. Theoretically, if you wanted to decrease CO2 output by reducing the number of food animals, simply not raising that many for food would also work. Of course that's assuming that people are willing to cut down on their meat input, and that's highly unlikely.

A major problem that America (I'm not sure about some other countries, it's a bit better in Taiwan) is the way our cities are set up. The existence of suburbia greatly exacerbates the problem of huge amounts of traffic on the road, because people have to make long daily commutes all the time, and they have to drive everywhere. Drive to the supermarket, drive to the soccer field, drive to school, drive to the movies... in Taiwan since I lived in a city public transportation was fairly accessible, and you could pretty get to all necessary places within a 15-20 minute scooter drive.

Cities like New York do a slightly better job at public transportation, but the rest of the country definitely has a long way to go towards reducing fuel emissions. Currently short of complete new landscaping and moving people closer to cities instead of living in the suburbs, conserving energy and resources and maybe driving more fuel-efficient cars is probably the first step.

Live Earth !

Gollevainen

Colonel

Scratch

Captain

Jeff Head

General

Gollevainen

Colonel

Jeff Head

General

Gollevainen

Colonel

Jeff Head

General

Finn McCool

Captain

sumdud

Senior Member

The_Zergling

Junior Member