Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

I'm inclined to think this is all one big plate of steaming bullshit. While I like to think of myself, and most folks I know as conversationalists, that's not to be confused with a climate alarmist. First we get hit with the right hand....convince everyone that polar bears are aimlessly swimming around the Arctic Ocean looking for small blocks of ice to crawl up on. Then comes the left hook.....Green Energy, and all the bullshit that comes with that. GM receiving billions for electric car development ( did you hear the one about GM recalling all it's electric cars?) , then comes all the Solyndra's and the rest of the solar panel hoax, and billions more poured down the a green rat hole. Then the hideous windmills that littler the landscape from Pennsylvania to South Dakota that can barley produce enough energy to keep the ice cream frozen. Yet we have more clean natural gas than any country on earth, but try to get a pipeline built so we can convert the coal plants....And folks like Trish wonder why we're skeptics? BTW...what ever happen to Al Gore???????

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I'm inclined to think...

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We know what you're ideology INCLINES you toward, but it's not thinking.

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...windmills that littler the landscape ... that can barley produce enough energy to keep the ice cream frozen.

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Did you know, my illiterate friend, that last spring wind provided 40% of Spain's power. I should think that would keep the GOP's tea sufficiently iced; were we capable of repeating Spain's success.

The key words in your post are INCLINED and SKEPTIC. They are both chosen to deceive the reader into believing you put more thought into the issue than you have. INCLINED makes us think that you carefully weighed the evidence on both sides of the issue__ perhaps putting all the evidence for on one side of the see-saw and all the evidence against on the other side and then because the balance was so delicate, placing a marble on the incline to see which way it would roll. What belies the word usage is the conclusion: climate science is a steaming plate of shit. Well gee, if it’s one steaming plate of shit why be skeptical? Skeptical connotes a measure of restraint__a withholding of judgement. It admits the possibility that the truth may lie in either direction. To claim in the same post that climate science is “one big plate of steaming bullshit” and then claim you’re a climate science “skeptic” is a ludicrous abuse of language. It’s like saying, “I thought about eating that big steaming pile of shit but in the end I was inclined not to.” Really?? We’re suppose to believe such a judgment involved a moment of “thought.” Obviously your mind was made up from the start, influenced as it is by right wing swill. You were never a climate science skeptic and your inclinations are determined by the gradients of political punditry.

Then asking what happen to Ah Gore. Sheeesh! Whatever happened to Smokey the Bear? They’re both mere spokesmen. Gore isn’t a scientist and Smokey isn’t forest ranger. Why such attention to surface details??


http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/

and

http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538

these politicians are just after our money and this is one of their thieving schemes along with their paid scientists to grab our money

Guess who else is just after your money? (Hint: You are a consumer. Who do who pay for the goods and services you receive?) Would you characterize the money making schemes of a corporation as "thieving" just because their bottom line is profit?

Did you know that grants do not increase a researcher's paycheck one iota? The grant money goes to the university. The researcher draws his usual salary from the university. The university uses the grant money to also pays for the graduate students, lab technicians, machinists, electricians and other experts etc. that the experiment requires; i.e. the researcher is a "job-creator.". The bottom line for a researcher is never monetary profit, the bottom line is to secure more accurate knowledge.



http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/

and

http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538

It is true to say that if climate change and global warming are issues for everyone then everyone has to pull together, and if China and India go their own ways it won't work -that is obvious, but at least by making the issue important it doesn't just throw it all away, and the Chinese people are also increasingly aware that the costs of industrialisation and urbanisation are traffic gridlock and skies with strange colours and air that just aint right -at some point it could be the people there who force the government to act, but that I admit is a tough call.

We are feeling our way through to alternative and mixed-energy solutions to the decline of oil; solar energy works at the local level for housing and small villages in poor countries: it can't power a town or a city, but it does work -President Carter demonstrated that it worked when the White House ran on the solar panels he installed to show that there are alternatives to 'America's addiction to oil' which at least two other Presidents after him railed against (both were called Bush). Solar is one option, it might not be cheap to install, and the anti-planet Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition here has withdrawn subsidies home owners could claim to convert to renewable energy, but it does work and in the long term is practicable and cheap. There is nothing wrong with mixed energy solutions, they use them in Brazil and Germany, but as I said before, the argument about carbon taxes is diverting attention away from the global condition and narrowing it to a domestic issue of taxes -none of which invalidates the science.

in Australia this carbon tax will bring down the labor government in which our PM said here will be no carbon tax under the government i lead

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Originally Posted by russtafa

these politicians are just after our money and this is one of their thieving schemes along with their paid scientists to grab our money

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And we should remember that corporations are private governments. So, in that sense CEOs and other senior executives are politicians. Albeit private.
When gas prices go up is that a conspiracy??? Speculation drives up the price of gas. Again, is that a conspiracy?
It should be noted that corporations are serving their own interests. By design they're out to serve their own narrow interests. Whereas (public, as it were) politicians have to serve what's called: dual constituents. Politicians, as it were, have to respond to the public. But they also serve and have to serve the dominant institutional structure in our society: corporations. (Corporations write the legislation that is passed by Congress.
When we talk about government conspiring to "grab" money from us, well, we have to realize who overwhelmingly controls our government. I mean, look at what Bush/Cheney set out to do: privatize government. Obama has continued along that same path. And this has been going on, again, for close to 30 years.
Mussolini coined the term Fascism. Which is a merger of State power with corporate power. It's happened.)
Just curious: was the Apollo program a scheme to "grab" money from the American taxpayer? What about the Cold War? Or the supposed war on terror? Where the combined military budget -- when you factor in Homeland Security and the Department of Energy -- is upwards of $1 trillion. Is that a conspiracy? And should we just do away with taxes???
And we should also understand that when you go to the store and buy something, well, that's a tax.... What?!?!? you're thinking -- :) But it's a charge by a corporation. So they can raise revenue, as it were. It's a tax. But we don't think of it as such. But it is.

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Originally Posted by onmyknees

I'm inclined to think this is all one big plate of steaming bullshit. While I like to think of myself, and most folks I know as conversationalists, that's not to be confused with a climate alarmist. First we get hit with the right hand....convince everyone that polar bears are aimlessly swimming around the Arctic Ocean looking for small blocks of ice to crawl up on. Then comes the left hook.....Green Energy, and all the bullshit that comes with that. GM receiving billions for electric car development ( did you hear the one about GM recalling all it's electric cars?) , then comes all the Solyndra's and the rest of the solar panel hoax, and billions more poured down the a green rat hole. Then the hideous windmills that littler the landscape from Pennsylvania to South Dakota that can barley produce enough energy to keep the ice cream frozen. Yet we have more clean natural gas than any country on earth, but try to get a pipeline built so we can convert the coal plants....And folks like Trish wonder why we're skeptics? BTW...what ever happen to Al Gore???????

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Cigarette companies in the 60s knew full well (as they commissioned their own studies) that cigarettes were harmful. But they hid it for decades. They lied to the public.
In the 90s oil companies commissioned their own studies and concluded that global warming is serious and poses a serious threat. But they understood that they're going to have to carry out a campaign of disinformation to, well, serve their own narrow interests.
Plus right-wingers are being rational in denying global warming. I mean, they've an economic model that would be hurt, as it were, if they acknowledged that global warming is real and serious.
Because the absolute free movement of capital would have to stop. U.S. corporations couldn't engage in the utter free movement of capital. Ya know, setting up factories in China to employ cheap Chinese workers and then putting all that stuff on massive ships that pollute a helluva lot and add to global warming.
And, too, right wing economics approaches the so-called "science" of economics as a hard science. Like physics. (In reality economics is a soft science.) So, they've spent decades devising their economic model. And perfecting it. And, again, thinking this is a hard science like physics.
So, they believe their model can and should work. And nothing should impinge on it, as it were. And then comes along the science of global warming. And this poses a profound THREAT to their economic model. And hence, well, they'll resist it. And condemn it. Because it goes against their rational model. Something they've perfected for a long time. I mean, that bastard John Maynard Keynes stood in the way of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Gary Becker.
So, global warming does pose a serious threat to this rational economic model devised by the likes of Hayek, Friedman etc. etc.
It's rational to defend your science, your economic model, your religion -- :)

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Originally Posted by Ben

In the 90s oil companies commissioned their own studies and concluded that global warming is serious and poses a serious threat. But they understood that they're going to have to carry out a campaign of disinformation to, well, serve their own narrow interests.
Plus right-wingers are being rational in denying global warming. I mean, they've an economic model that would be hurt, as it were, if they acknowledged that global warming is real and serious.
Because the absolute free movement of capital would have to stop. U.S. corporations couldn't engage in the utter free movement of capital. Ya know, setting up factories in China to employ cheap Chinese workers and then putting all that stuff on massive ships that pollute a helluva lot and add to global warming.

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I can't agree with this Ben. One of the consequences of oil companies acknowledging the human role in global warming, has been the development of renewable energy businesses, even though there is no reason why petroleum companies should do this -and its not like the level of investment in it bares comparison with the development of an offshore oil field.

So what disinformation are you talking about? I don't get that.

As energy companies their interests are only narrow in the sense that they must discover more oil and gas each year than they produce (the resources to reserves ratio), to meet market demand. Oil prices are not controlled by the independent companies like Exxon Shell Total and BP, and government taxes particularly in the UK make up most of the price of gasoline for motorists. As I suggested in an earlier post, oil companies have been able to reduce emissions and be 'green' because they could afford all the modifications to refneries and oil rigs that are required; chemicals firms, power plants contribute more greenhouse gases than the oil companies. None of the existing companies is hurt, as it were, if they acknowledged that global warming is real and serious, because there can be non overnight change to the way we use energy; there is already a transition taking place, uneven and disjointed, but over the next 50-75 years it will transform the energy profile of society, and it is all part of the challenge of managing the decline of petroleum, climate change, population growth, the depletion of water resources, and so on.

I am not suggesting you lay off the oil companies, but they are the easy target (as are banks and bankers), and in this case the arrows are falling wide of the target.

The release of fossil carbon dioxide is the largest contributor to global anthpogenic heat imbalance. This fact points the finger at our use of coal, oil and natural gas as energy sources. Currently the bulk of our energy comes from coal. China is bringing online scores of new coal plants on a monthly basis. But oil is not innocent and American’s still burn a lot of it to run their factories, heat their homes and fuel their cars. Oil provides more than 40% of the world’s energy. It’s no longer a secret that oil corporations have funded anti-global warming cranks. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...imate-sceptics Though coal and China might be the bullseye, oil corporations are not wide of the target.

good for the planet to purge itself of our wretched species ... personally i think humans will extinct themselves within 200years anyway

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Originally Posted by LibertyHarkness

good for the planet to purge itself of our wretched species ... personally i think humans will extinct themselves within 200years anyway

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that's good because we will all be dust by that time so who cares

death is a path we all will take :) why fear it ... when your dead your dead so it wont matter lol :)

just enjoy the shit in the middle :)

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Originally Posted by LibertyHarkness

death is a path we all will take :) why fear it ... when your dead your dead so it wont matter lol :)

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Ahh.. but thats where you are mistaken.. :)

have you been dead yet ? :)

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Originally Posted by trish

The release of fossil carbon dioxide is the largest contributor to global anthpogenic heat imbalance. This fact points the finger at our use of coal, oil and natural gas as energy sources. Currently the bulk of our energy comes from coal. China is bringing online scores of new coal plants on a monthly basis. But oil is not innocent and American’s still burn a lot of it to run their factories, heat their homes and fuel their cars. Oil provides more than 40% of the world’s energy. It’s no longer a secret that oil corporations have funded anti-global warming cranks. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...imate-sceptics Though coal and China might be the bullseye, oil corporations are not wide of the target.

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If we agree that the issues involved in climate change and global warming have been deepened and accelerated by human activity, then coal, oil and gas, historically are only a part of the cause; deforestation is another cause.

Among contemporary actors, the major independent oil companies -I don't consider Koch Industries in your link to be one of them- have reduced emissions with greater success than other industries; power companies are not doing so well, by comparison.

I would rather move this whole debate from an arid cycle of exchanges that lead nowhere to find out how people see their future, whether it is the pessimistic 200 years to go of Ms Harkness; or Faldur's What's the problem, dude?

I think as a general rule, all of us want to live in a clean and safe environment -which means, for example, that we don't want to live in the vicinity of a chemicals plant that spews strange-smelling clouds over the garden and pollutes the river running through town. Environmental legislation exists for a purpose, but one of the reasons why, in the USA, the EPA was set up in 1970 was to meet the public's anxiety at the impact that modern industry was having on the quality of life in cities towns and villages.

Many countries have followed the USA by creating responsible legislation and monitoring agencies, and in general terms the environment we live in in the western world is cleaner today than it was when I was born. The descent of smog in those days often meant that we left school early in groups of six with a teacher leading us home through streets where visibility was barely 12 inches. The coal we used for domestic heating, and industrial pollutants belching from chimney stacks were a primary cause -the Clean Air Act, smokeless fuels, and changes to industrial production mean smog is a phenomenon of the past. Motor vehicles contain virtually no lead now whereas it was common until the 1970s when the campaigns to remove lead from petrol succeeded in spite of the oil companies saying it would be financially destructive (it wasn't of course).

My point is that we have the technological means to live in a cleaner world, a safer world, and a world in which we enjoy the benefits of a fuel-mix that includes conventional oil and gas, as well as solar, wind and wave power, and biofuels; and that as prosperity rises in poorer countries, people will no longer have to build wood fires to cook and keep warm, or tear down precious forests.

The long term future of hydrocarbons is doomed, because it is a finite source of energy -hydraulic fracturing has only become viable because the price of oil is unlikely to dip below $50 a barrel in the future; but while there are billions of barrels of unconventional oil and gas on the planet, it doesn't mean that existing technology and capital can unlock them: we are still unsure of the environmental consequendes of 'fracking' and if society decides it is too much to risk, it will not go ahead. I don't see this as a problem, as long as the conventional sources of oil are maintained, peak oil -globally- is not due for another 50 years; but that gives society time to develop the alternatives.

With one exception, the solutions to the impact of climate change and global warming are here, be they political, technological, or financial: they work, and in the long term they are cost-effective -even if you don't believe in climate change or global warming, it makes sense to diversify the sources of energy; it makes sense to halt deforestation; it makes sense to regulate indsutrial production and protect local and national environments; it is a win-win situation to diversify energy sources, but it does require the kind of international co-operation that has made disease control since the 19th centuty one of history's great success stories.

If there is one exception that gives me the greatest anxiety, it is the threat to water supplies. Two third of the planet is covered in water, but only 1% is good enough for humans to drink; Lima, in Peru is facing a future without water in the next 10 years if emergency measures are not taken. The Inca never settled there because there was no water, the Conquistadores did so because the Inca were not there. Bad move. The Yemen -the most densely populated state on the Arabian Peninsula- will run out of water in the next 10-20 years -it was a combination of drought and famine that drove the inhabitants of Arabia Felix north several thousand years ago; the prospects for social chaos consquence upon water shortages in some parts of the world are real.

These issues are bigger than taxes on carbon, bigger than childish debates about selective emails that prove a, b and c as you wish to prove it -but all of these problems can be solved, we have the money, we have the technology; all that is lacking is the political will.

Indeed, deforestation is a serious contributor to global warming. My post focused on the release of long sequestered (on the order of geological time) carbon dioxide. But living forests play a key role in annual carbon cycle by “scrubbing” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen. Even without the addition of fossil carbon dioxide, our climate would be responding to the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to deforestation.

Stavros seems to be pointing to two, not unrelated problems. One is the problem of finding a future source of energy that won’t destabilize the climatic energy balance or push us towards an equilibrium that proves disastrous to civilized life. The other problem is how to adopt industrial and economic practices that are not harmful to the quality of human life. The toxins produced by fracking, the rancid atmospheric pollutants output by factory farms that drive their neighbors indoors and renders their homes unsellable, the giant oil spills that ruin hundreds of miles of pristine beaches may or may have measurable effect on climate, but they do sadly diminish the quality of life.

The climate is the commons. Underground water aquifers are the commons. (Because of the extended drought, Texas is now metering private wells that draw water from large underground aquifers). We have a collective interest in the health of the oceans, the bayou, the beaches etc. We have an interest in protecting the commons from private exploitation through enforced regulation.

I agree with Liberty Harkness, that “when you’re dead, you’re dead.” Only a few talented bubbleheads can disagree with a tautology. But it doesn’t follow that when you’re dead quality of life will no longer be of any concern to the humans who survive you. We've been here for around 400, 000 years. It doesn’t seem to me that extinction is only 200 years away. But given the rate of cultural change we’ve witnessed over the last 4000 years it is very likely that human culture 200 years from now may look radically different from how it appears today. Though I won’t be around to see it, I sincerely hope our knowledge survives and expands, that we do not revert to the barbarities of the past and it remains possible for an average family to thrive and be happy. I don’t think this is an impossible wish. But, as always, the future will depend upon the contingencies of today.

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Originally Posted by trish

Indeed, deforestation is a serious contributor to global warming. My post focused on the release of long sequestered (on the order of geological time) carbon dioxide. But living forests play a key role in annual carbon cycle by “scrubbing” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen. Even without the addition of fossil carbon dioxide, our climate would be responding to the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to deforestation.

Stavros seems to be pointing to two, not unrelated problems. One is the problem of finding a future source of energy that won’t destabilize the climatic energy balance or push us towards an equilibrium that proves disastrous to civilized life. The other problem is how to adopt industrial and economic practices that are not harmful to the quality of human life. The toxins produced by fracking, the rancid atmospheric pollutants output by factory farms that drive their neighbors indoors and renders their homes unsellable, the giant oil spills that ruin hundreds of miles of pristine beaches may or may have measurable effect on climate, but they do sadly diminish the quality of life.

The climate is the commons. Underground water aquifers are the commons. (Because of the extended drought, Texas is now metering private wells that draw water from large underground aquifers). We have a collective interest in the health of the oceans, the bayou, the beaches etc. We have an interest in protecting the commons from private exploitation through enforced regulation.

I agree with Liberty Harkness, that “when you’re dead, you’re dead.” Only a few talented bubbleheads can disagree with a tautology. But it doesn’t follow that when you’re dead quality of life will no longer be of any concern to the humans who survive you. We've been here for around 400, 000 years. It doesn’t seem to me that extinction is only 200 years away. But given the rate of cultural change we’ve witnessed over the last 4000 years it is very likely that human culture 200 years from now may look radically different from how it appears today. Though I won’t be around to see it, I sincerely hope our knowledge survives and expands, that we do not revert to the barbarities of the past and it remains possible for an average family to thrive and be happy. I don’t think this is an impossible wish. But, as always, the future will depend upon the contingencies of today.

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you people with this carbon

The problem is there is to many people per square mile on parts of this planet which is causing a strain on its resources .Carbon is one is one of the results of this as well as other forms of pollution, but its not going to wipe out life on this planet.The problem of clean drinking water is a far worse problem

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you people with this carbon

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LOL:smh

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but its not going to wipe out life on this planet.

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We may just all have to live in a venusian desert. Then water will be even a greater problem.

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Originally Posted by trish

We know what you're ideology INCLINES you toward, but it's not thinking.
Did you know, my illiterate friend, that last spring wind provided 40% of Spain's power. I should think that would keep the GOP's tea sufficiently iced; were we capable of repeating Spain's success.

The key words in your post are INCLINED and SKEPTIC. They are both chosen to deceive the reader into believing you put more thought into the issue than you have. INCLINED makes us think that you carefully weighed the evidence on both sides of the issue__ perhaps putting all the evidence for on one side of the see-saw and all the evidence against on the other side and then because the balance was so delicate, placing a marble on the incline to see which way it would roll. What belies the word usage is the conclusion: climate science is a steaming plate of shit. Well gee, if it’s one steaming plate of shit why be skeptical? Skeptical connotes a measure of restraint__a withholding of judgement. It admits the possibility that the truth may lie in either direction. To claim in the same post that climate science is “one big plate of steaming bullshit” and then claim you’re a climate science “skeptic” is a ludicrous abuse of language. It’s like saying, “I thought about eating that big steaming pile of shit but in the end I was inclined not to.” Really?? We’re suppose to believe such a judgment involved a moment of “thought.” Obviously your mind was made up from the start, influenced as it is by right wing swill. You were never a climate science skeptic and your inclinations are determined by the gradients of political punditry.

Then asking what happen to Ah Gore. Sheeesh! Whatever happened to Smokey the Bear? They’re both mere spokesmen. Gore isn’t a scientist and Smokey isn’t forest ranger. Why such attention to surface details??


http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/

and

http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538

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Well Trish...you can continue your one woman show with all your charts, graphs, scare tactics, and doom and gloom, but as usual, you're on the wrong side of the issue...BECAUSE NOBODY GIVES A FUCK. !! You're like the one remaining protestor down at OWS who's still beatin' the druum as the cops haul him away. The gig is up, you had a good run, a few guys made lots of money, the polar bears are having a good time again, and you may even get a show on Current out of all your hysteria, and maybe a couple hundred folks will turn in to be bored to tears, and .........maybe someday when we're not 15 trillion in debt, unemployment is a manageable 4%, we're drilling for oil in the Gulf, and building pipelines for natural gas, maybe we'll take another look and tune you in again ....just for a few laughs to hear you still lecturing is on cap and trade...(snore)
So long climate change...we hardly knew ya.

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just for a few laughs to hear you still lecturing is on cap and trade

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Find any post...ANY POST...where I said one thing or another about cap and trade. I dare you. You can't. You're a loser, you just make things up. You throw whatever shit that comes to your tiny brain whether it applies or not. You're all over the fucking map and saying nothing. Why don't you try to make a point, loser?

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo1327.html#/

and

http://www.nature.com/news/three-qua...an-made-1.9538

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Originally Posted by LibertyHarkness

have you been dead yet ? :)

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Well, not personally. How 'bout you, Morticia? I am running a tad late for Halloween though.:hide-1:

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Originally Posted by onmyknees

So long climate change...we hardly knew ya.

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If you deny that science has proven that human activity is changing the climate and generating advanced global warming, is there anything about the other half of the thread, such as the 'extinction of our species' that you are concerned about?

For example, are you indifferent to deforestation in the Amazon basin -if it means obliterating the habitat of the first nations who live there - is that just the way the cookie crumbles? Does the modernisation of Africa and as a consequence the extinction of thousands of species of birds and insects, and also Gorillas bother you at all, is this just the impact of market forces?

I am not suggesting you should lie awake at night frightened that the world will end up looking like a giant shopping mall, but there are so many beautiful things to see, and places to go which make life on earth a pleasurable experience, isn't there an argument for us setting limits on where industry can go to preserve the best of what we have?

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Originally Posted by trish

LOL:smhWe may just all have to live in a venusian desert. Then water will be even a greater problem.

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what a load of bull
"venusian desert":dead:

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what a load of bull
"venusian desert"

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Tell that to Texas, currently undergoing a drought like they've never seen before. That conservative State of the rugged individualism has taken to metering private wells that draw water from the common aquifer.

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Originally Posted by trish

....., that last spring wind provided 40% of Spain's power.

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I don't think it did, not on avg. anyway (to be fair to you though...you didn't really say that) ...I thought that figure was a bit high so I looked it up. It seems during some particularly strong gales in 2009 , wind power provided 40% of Spain's energy for a couple of hours. It did even better this year at 59 % (a new record) Nov.6 for almost a day. On average though, Spain now derives about 16% of it's energy from windmills...which is still pretty impressive. While looking this up I ran across another interesting stat : the U.S. is the second largest user of windmills (China is #1...Spain is #4)...


Trish, if you had to recommend one nature magazine over all others (in terms of stories/science/photo's)...which would it be? Thank You.

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Originally Posted by trish

Tell that to Texas, currently undergoing a drought like they've never seen before. That conservative State of the rugged individualism has taken to metering private wells that draw water from the common aquifer.

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big deal the world is always going though droughts and floods that has nothing to do with carbon

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Originally Posted by russtafa

big deal the world is always going though droughts and floods that has nothing to do with carbon

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russtafa why are you so cynical? Even if you don't think carbon emissions over nearly 200 years, climate change, global warming or the wrath of God are to blame, you know yourself that livelihoods have been lost in northern Queensland over more than 200 years because of periodic droughts -do you think those farmers and herders just shrugged their shoulders and said, lets move south, I can drive a taxi? The issue is resource management, whatever the cause of local/global climate patterns: how we maintain the land so that it doesn't dry out and die out; how we protect precious water resources, and how we have alternatives for ventures that don't fail. Over the next 5 years on current rates of production, food prices are set to rise dramatically -China now needs so much Pork, for example, it is importing it from the UK, which means the dear old Pork Pie makers in Meltron Mowbray are competing for the raw product, and finding the cost in the last year has gone up by nearly 30% -sugar, wheat are following this trend. Its a devilish mixture of market forces and nature. And whether you care or not, at some point in the future, you will pay.

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Originally Posted by fred41

I don't think it did, not on avg. anyway (to be fair to you though...you didn't really say that) ...I thought that figure was a bit high so I looked it up. It seems during some particularly strong gales in 2009 , wind power provided 40% of Spain's energy for a couple of hours. It did even better this year at 59 % (a new record) Nov.6 for almost a day. On average though, Spain now derives about 16% of it's energy from windmills...which is still pretty impressive. While looking this up I ran across another interesting stat : the U.S. is the second largest user of windmills (China is #1...Spain is #4)...


Trish, if you had to recommend one nature magazine over all others (in terms of stories/science/photo's)...which would it be? Thank You.

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No, not an average: I cited a recent and notable to peak to counter an empty hyperbole.

http://www.gizmag.com/wind-power-spain/11215/

But as you say the average 16% is nothing to sneeze at. When it comes to specifics I’m not big on telling people what to do or how to meet civilization’s energy needs. I have no opinion on cap and trade (which started in the U.S. as a GOP proposal and now seems to be favored by DEMS and is pooh-poohed by the GOP...go figure). Hazards accompany any and all methods of producing power on the gigawatt scale. Climate change is the hazard of using coal and oil (and yes Russtafa, it’s happening. Whereas no single event can be said to be caused by greenhouse forced climatic heat imbalance the increased frequency of such events is evidence for it). The hazards of natural gas include explod[]ing neighborhoods and ground water polution via fracking. The hazards of nuclear are increase cancer deaths within plumes of periodically released gasses, not to mention the big unsolved problem of how to dispose of nuclear waste. The troubles of hydroelectric include the dangers dam[] failure, flooding and the diversion of water supplies. Wind power is a hazard to migrating bird populations (which are already declining precipitiously). Many complain of the noise and the view. The production of semi-conductors used in Solar panels uses toxic chemicals. Battery disposal is a huge problem.

When [living] plants switch[ed] to solar power eons ago they nearly forced themselves out of existence by filling the atmosphere with gas that’s noxious to photosynthesizing plants, namely oxygen. (Today it’s human civilization that covers the face of the planet and we’re filling the atmosphere carbon dioxide and chopping down giant swaths of forests that would sequester it for us for free. ) The moral is (and russtafa should agree with this) the scale of energy production required to sustain a worldwide civilization of nearly seven billion people will inevi[t]ably change the ecology of the planet. We need to proceed with caution if we do not want to effect our quality of life adversely.

Now to the question “if you had to recommend one nature magazine over all others (in terms of stories/science/photo's)...which would it be? Thank You.”

I’m too swamped to read nature magazines anymore for their stories and photos though I do still have a few that get delivered to my mailbox.

Until Stephen Jay Gould died I subscribed to Natural History and read his column with pleasure. The magazine does still have great pictures, stories and explains a lot of science. I think I would recommend this one first even though it’s been awhile since I’ve perused an issue.

I currently get Scientific American, Physics Today, Nature and Notices of the American Mathematical Society delivered to my mailbox. Of these I can only recommend Scientific American for the laymen.

I also regularly visit

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/

[BTW Fred, I don't mean to aim this whole diatribe at you, but rather took your post as a springboard to address some of the ideas posted by others as well.]

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Originally Posted by Stavros

russtafa why are you so cynical? Even if you don't think carbon emissions over nearly 200 years, climate change, global warming or the wrath of God are to blame, you know yourself that livelihoods have been lost in northern Queensland over more than 200 years because of periodic droughts -do you think those farmers and herders just shrugged their shoulders and said, lets move south, I can drive a taxi? The issue is resource management, whatever the cause of local/global climate patterns: how we maintain the land so that it doesn't dry out and die out; how we protect precious water resources, and how we have alternatives for ventures that don't fail. Over the next 5 years on current rates of production, food prices are set to rise dramatically -China now needs so much Pork, for example, it is importing it from the UK, which means the dear old Pork Pie makers in Meltron Mowbray are competing for the raw product, and finding the cost in the last year has gone up by nearly 30% -sugar, wheat are following this trend. Its a devilish mixture of market forces and nature. And whether you care or not, at some point in the future, you will pay.

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Australia has had climate change for thousands of years .Australia has always had extremes of climate well before European settlement

Australia is a continent with a deserts, coasts, mountains and forests. It has regions that exemplify all diverse extremes of climate. Moreover Australia has had it appropriate share of one-hundred year droughts, rains and floods. That is not climate change; though I don't doubt, if you say so, that Australia has seen climate change over the last century and an increased frequency of one-hundred year weather events.

Warmer air holds more water vapor. So it takes longer to reach saturation (i.e. the time between rains tends to increase, creating more droughts). When the warmer air reaches saturation, there's a greater a volume of precipitation (i.e. heavier rains and heavier snows).

:shrugProfessor Tim Flannery the government spokesman for climate change told Australians that if they had houses on the coast that they could loose their homes to the seas rising and he then turned around and brought a house on the coast,go figure

Australian company has invented a process to convert waste into jet fuel.I have just read this in the Daily Telegraph today

What elevation is the house?

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Originally Posted by trish

What elevation is the house?

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i dont know or care the man brought a home on the shore

Quote:

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Originally Posted by trish

What elevation is the house?

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i dont know or care the man brought a home on the shore and scamed Australia with his mad predictions that have been so far off that they are are insane

If you don't know the elevation you don't know he bought a home on the shore. What time scale did he give for these predictions?

http://flood.firetree.net/

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Originally Posted by trish

If you don't know the elevation you don't know he bought a home on the shore. What time scale did he give for these predictions?

http://flood.firetree.net/

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2100 is when he predicted it could rise by 14 feet.what a dickhead

Got a link to that prediction? Most estimates(IPCC's for example) are much more conservative (from 0.5 ft to 2 feet by the century's end). You probably know Tim Flannery is a biologist and a climate activist, but not a climatologist. In any case he's got 89 years to enjoy his home. Think he'll live that long? BTW did you take a look at that interactive map. Pretty cool eh? If you're going to make a very long term investment (centuries long) on coastal properties, I recommend consulting the map.


http://flood.firetree.net/