Global Warming and climate change

[Moofassa]

Okay, I'm gonna get the ball rolling on this one. "Global warming" has become an everyday media topic, and many people I know do not question anything they hear about it.
Intro
The general scientific consensus here is that the Earth's temperature is increasing. Several explations have been given for this, the most common being that human activity e.g. Industrialisation has caused an accelerated greenhouse effect due to increased emmissions of greenhouse gases, causing the earths temp to rise, which could lead to important consequences for us.

However, not everyone agrees. There are other theories, such as the eliptical nature of earths orbit, the fact there has been recent violent solar activity etc.

I'm interested to hear what anyone thinks. Causes, solutions, conspiracies etc, all is up for discussion. Just follow the sensible rules jon has provided

[joewarne]

I am in no doubt that this is man made, through industrialisation and the increased use of fossil fuel power etc

The only way (in my opinion) that this can be solved is a worldwide agreed consensus that each country should reduce their usage to a certain percentage of what it was, according to their population and resources in place.

And of coarse the increased global investment in renewable energies and public transportation.

[Moofassa]

Hi joe, thanks for your post.
Just to say what I think - I am skeptical, especially due to the controversy over using exaggerated figures in graphs etc. I'm talking about Al gores film, an inconveniant truth in particular, which I have several problems with, especially as huge numbers of people with no previous knowledge of this issue form their opinions from,believing it all to be fact...

I agree the shift to renewable energy sources is a no brainer, but I think this is something we should be doing ANYWAY, not just to "stop global warming". Dependance on finite quantities of fuel that is owned by other countries is dangerous, as seen when Russia stopped sending gas to their European pipeline..
I am not saying global warming does not exist or that we have nothing to do with it. I am simply trying to keep an open mind, whereas the media would prefer me to accept the most popular theory. The end of the world sells papers :P

[Monkeyegg]

I think it is a combination of both arguments i.e. we are speeding it up rather than causing it outright. It would probably happen eventually. Who's to say, though, that we don't have the intelligence and technology to reverse the effects?

In my opinion, whether we believe or not, what harm is there in trying to reduce emissions, recycling etc? We don't own the planet, we share it with like a billion other species. What gives us the right to deplete the world's natural resources?

[kevan321]

Originally Posted by Moofassa

I agree the shift to renewable energy sources is a no brainer, but I think this is something we should be doing ANYWAY, not just to "stop global warming". Dependance on finite quantities of fuel that is owned by other countries is dangerous, as seen when Russia stopped sending gas to their European pipeline..
I am not saying global warming does not exist or that we have nothing to do with it. I am simply trying to keep an open mind, whereas the media would prefer me to accept the most popular theory. The end of the world sells papers :P

I'm in a similar way of thinking to you, but disagree with the use of renewables, they're just not good enough, to generate 20% of the UKs current demand we'd need to use land the equivalent of wales just for windfarms, they're massive and ruin our natural scenery. Right now that same 20% is generated by old nuclear stations, most people wouldn't even really know where they are.

I think nuclear is the most important option we have, it has almost no carbon emissions, and uranium can be sourced from many politically stable countries, unlike gas and oil.

For renewables I think wave power may be a better option but the technology is still under developed and we need to start building now as the quickest of stations will take around 3 years to build and we need to act faster than that if we don't want our power rationed (a likely situation).

[Moofassa]

Nuclear is good - massive energy yield and we have better access to the fuel, however long term we need something else - decommissioning and initial costs are way too high. I'm not worried about a chernobyll style blowout - the technology is better and I can trust the workers to be responsible, the costs are just huge.
When I talked about renewable sources I didn't mean they should become our main source of energy, but I think they will have an increasing role to play - as the technology becomes more sophisticated.

Whati'm really excited about is the current research on Fusion technology, using a similar principal to how the sun generates power. It's like nuclear fission, bit basically without the dangerous waste produced and no need for decommissioning. This Is all still a while off, but it's important resesearch. Until then, we need a combination of more nuclear fission, combined with increased renewable usesge.

[kevan321]

Originally Posted by Moofassa

Nuclear is good - massive energy yield and we have better access to the fuel, however long term we need something else - decommissioning and initial costs are way too high. I'm not worried about a chernobyll style blowout - the technology is better and I can trust the workers to be responsible, the costs are just huge.
When I talked about renewable sources I didn't mean they should become our main source of energy, but I think they will have an increasing role to play - as the technology becomes more sophisticated.

Whati'm really excited about is the current research on Fusion technology, using a similar principal to how the sun generates power. It's like nuclear fission, bit basically without the dangerous waste produced and no need for decommissioning. This Is all still a while off, but it's important resesearch. Until then, we need a combination of more nuclear fission, combined with increased renewable usesge.

Fusion is way too far off, in long term it'd be ideal.

I think it's highly unlikely that anything like chernoble would happen again. That technology was old and the requirement for so much safety wasn't realised. Now everything has a backup and if anything at all goes wrong, the plant automatically shuts down until it's fixed.

Ye combined is the only true option (imo), Carbon capture gas stations will most likely be very popular but they're very expensive and use our limited gas

[barcelonic]

The future is and always has been with geothermal energy. In fact if we had continued to invest heavily in this we could already be at a point where 25% of the world's power is supplied by geothermal.

Potentially in the future we could produce enough power from this method alone to never have to worry about energy sources ever again!

Read this article...
Technology Review: Abundant Power from Universal Geothermal Energy

Best part:
"Like many energy technologies, it had a lot of support structure back in the 70s and in the 80s, but our national priorities shifted from energy to other things, and we didn't necessarily invest enough in it at that time to bring it to fruition."

Basically money hasn't been invested in this technology because there is still global interest in oil. It is the same reason that the automotive industry stopped developing electric cars - oil is power and power is money. One day though oil will run out and when that happens world politics will shift dramatically.

Whichever way you look at it though, our future is in geothermal energy.

[kevan321]

Originally Posted by barcelonic

Whichever way you look at it though, our future is in geothermal energy.

My issue with that is that it uses freshwater, groundwater in particular, something the world seriously lacks. They already struggle to replenish the over abstracted groundwater sources worldwide and that would just add to the problem.

[bmh16]

Global Warming isn't actually occuring, it's a fantasy created from boredom.

[barcelonic]

Originally Posted by bmh16

Global Warming isn't actually occuring, it's a fantasy created from boredom.

the global temperature is rising thats a fact. the only debate is about whether its man-made or just a natural harmless stage like the planet has seen before. did you know that the temperature on mars is rising too.

[bmh16]

Originally Posted by barcelonic

the global temperature is rising thats a fact. the only debate is about whether its man-made or just a natural harmless stage like the planet has seen before. did you know that the temperature on mars is rising too.

I was actually joking looking to stir up a big debate, was hoping for a few more disagreeing posts

[Amiethest]

The main problem is that we know Co2 traps heat in. This heats the world up. Whether this is a natural cycle or a combination of us contributing to it, it's anything but harmless and therefore irresponsible not to do anything about it.

[barcelonic]

Originally Posted by Amiethest

The main problem is that we know Co2 traps heat in. This heats the world up. Whether this is a natural cycle or a combination of us contributing to it, it's anything but harmless and therefore irresponsible not to do anything about it.

no because when the planet heats up naturally its just a phase and will return to normal eventually. this has happened many times before in the history of the planet and the Earth is no worse off for it. its simply part of being a planet and so actually is "harmless".

im not actually saying i believe global warming isn't manmade - tbh i dont really know where i stand with this one, but just thought id clarify that it actually does matter if its manmade or not, as if it is we're in big trouble but if it isnt then we're not.

[Harvez]

There was a program on one of the discovery chans last week showing the frozen lakes in Canada and under the lakes was this decomposing trees and bushes etc, you could break a hole in the ice then throw a match in and it would ignite and burn for upto 30 mins until that pocket of gas had been burnt away. now they say the lake when srping comes releases somthing like 1billions tonns of gas which is a ozone killer.

also showed some people watching the poles for ice caps melting etc they rekon with 10-20 we are going to see some major floods as sea levels rise.

[Moofassa]

The poles melting isn't what actually increases sea levels the most. Water expands as it increases in temperature, multiply this by the earths oceans and for every 0.1 of a degree you increase, the volume the water takes up and therefore sea level also rises.

Interesting energy fact, with current technology, to get the same energy output from a wind power that you get with a nuclear power station you would need to build one new wind turbine every day for 10 years!

Michael Chrichton's speeches on Global Warming and the environment are well worth a read, here are two of the best ones IMO :
MichaelCrichton.com | The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming
MichaelCrichton.com | Environmentalism as Religion

[kevan321]

Originally Posted by Moofassa

The poles melting isn't what actually increases sea levels the most. Water expands as it increases in temperature, multiply this by the earths oceans and for every 0.1 of a degree you increase, the volume the water takes up and therefore sea level also rises.

that's why I think desalination, although expensive and energy intensive,would be a good solution to the freshwater shortage in many countries, it would involve taking water out of the oceans and counter the rise of the sea levels (at least a little bit).

[Amiethest]

Originally Posted by barcelonic

no because when the planet heats up naturally its just a phase and will return to normal eventually. this has happened many times before in the history of the planet and the Earth is no worse off for it. its simply part of being a planet and so actually is "harmless".

im not actually saying i believe global warming isn't manmade - tbh i dont really know where i stand with this one, but just thought id clarify that it actually does matter if its manmade or not, as if it is we're in big trouble but if it isnt then we're not.

Really, so the whole extinction of the human race, floods, storms etc is not harmful?

[Jake]

The skeptics worry me alot... I believe personally that it's just hiding from the truth. I find it hard to understand what part of "carbon dioxide reflects some of the heat back to the earth, and carbon dioxide is released from fossil fuels" alot of people fail to grasp. In the end, either way we need to get renewable energy going - I don't think there is any denying the the resources will run out. Even with the "natural cycles" argument, by emitting all this locked up CO2, we are driving it to an extreme - not something slow and manageable like thousands of years in cycles.

I know renewables don't produce as much energy as coal, nuclear etc, but I think the reason we struggle to meet our energy needs from renewables is that for the past century (give or take a few decades, idk) we have been living in a world where energy comes quick and relatively cheap and we take it for granted. If everybody thought about the amount they used and cut down that amount, it might be less of a strain on renewables.

Interesting fact? With new concentrated solar technology, it would take 2% of the sahara desert to generate enough power for the current world's needs.

[barcelonic]

Originally Posted by Amiethest

Really, so the whole extinction of the human race, floods, storms etc is not harmful?

[copy & paste job] = 'this has happened many times before in the history of the planet and the Earth is no worse off for it. its simply part of being a planet and so actually is "harmless".'

Amiethest, what do they tell us to do to fight global warming? Be green - dont use aerosols, reduce your carbon footprint etc.. All of that stuff works only if global warming is a manmade problem. Clearly the fact they tell us to do all that is only because they believe we are responsible. Therefore if it were accepted that we are going through a natural cycle which our planet has gone through many times before and will many times again, it would be accepted also that we are in no danger whatsoever.

I was trying to explain the argument that current global warming has NOTHING to do with the ozone layer and is a natural occurrence that will do us no harm. Remember: the Earth has been through these phases before and not once did it result in the extinction of the human race or anything even half as dramatic.

So in answer to your question: d'uh! of course the "extinction of the human race" is harmful, and I never suggested for a second that it wasn't so why did you say that?