Global warming, when will people act on it?
 

Experts have only just concluded that global warming is caused by humanity. If it took us this long when will we see nations acting on it. And not just by putting up adverts saying we should turn off our lights at home (Thats just happened in the UK). I mean by passing laws against cars with MPG lower than 50 miles. Or actually building renewable power stations!

The only things that appear to hold us back are George Bush and everyones irrational fear of nuclear power!

Am I the only one who thinks we need to act NOW on this, even if its so that we have oil to make plastics and other products in the future!

Global warming may not affect us now but running out of oil sure as hell will!

I hate to say it, but it isn't, and will never be, a president holding us back on anything. He just doesn't have that kind of power (constitution and all that, you know). The real reason that nothing is done is a lot more straight forward.

Money.

If you can find a way to do it without eating away at company profits, without which there would be no reason for the company to exist in the first place, or tax dollars, which even the most activist environmentalists wouldn't stand for (the hipocrits) then you go ahead and suggest it.

Yeah. We never had pollution since before the source of all evil was elected to power in America. The cars in the 1940's were the model of efficiency and cleanliness. Factories in the 60's just dumped their excess into the rivers instead of polluting our valuable air.
I may or may not agree with your sentimentality, but I'm tired of hearing the blanket "bush's fault" arguments. It's a logical fallacy. We've had nuclear power capabilities for decades. The same people who complain about the lack of nuclear power plants also complain about disposal of nuclear waste under a mountain in the middle of a vast, uninhabitable wasteland. Dynamite is right. It's all about cost. Technology is going to move on, certain technologies will become cheaper to use, and the phrase 'green power' will do more than blow smoke.

Simple. It would cost us way to much money to cut back on emissions. In a time when we are shelling out billions and billions in the War of Terror, Global Warming takes a back seat.

When will we act?
It will be acted upon when we must act upon it not before, which would be the easier simpler thing to do.

If it comes to the point where the lives lost because of pollution is costing more than the money saved by not updating our technology thats when it will change. 'Oppertunity Cost' is the proper term from my business class I believe.

We've been polluting heavily since the end of WWII. I remember hearing that the Nazi's used vehicles which ran off of corn and were completely pollution free. Wish I had a source, but its just an offhand logic connective I have no idea if its true.

Still, I firmly believe that we've passed the point where reliable, efficient, nonpolluting vehicles can be easily created. Its simply the money that it would cost to revamp the industry is insane. I'm betting before my lifetime that cars are nearly obsolete, but it probably won't happen until my hypothetical children are out of college.

Hmm, we have had better, cleaner, and more viable power sources and engines for more than 20 years. The oil companies just buy them up, patent them, and file them away. Yeah, thats right I'm screaming "conspirescy!" Of course, I have a little first hand experience.

I have a friend named Jeff. He is a scientist/mechanic. (On a side note his dream is to build his own mech.) Anyway, he is a smart guy. When we were in 9th grade he used his dad's auto mechanic shop to modify an electric motor so that it was roughly twice to three times as strong as any then current electric car motor. It went farther, and had more power than most of the electric motors out there. He was really proud of himself.

He spent the next three weeks testing it. He put it into a small hatchback car. It apparently passed, because he was gonna patent the design. The same day he said he was gonna patent the design two men aproached him. They offered him $15,000 for the right to patent his engine design. He declined, figuring he could make more money if he patented it then sold it.

That night the little hatchback and his plans were stolen.

It is true that it costs money to act on global warming, but it will cost a hell of a lot more money for us when we run out of oil (maybe thats the real problem rather than global warming).
But if people like "Jeff" above are prevented from acting on these problems themselves because otherwise oil barons and car manufacturers will lose money! Then something is seriously wrong!

Dynamite, how does the constitution prevent us from becoming more energy effecient? Hell its only because of an old misconception that people think they have a "right" to have guns in america. Although it could be worse, they could think they have a right to Gnu's!

P.S: EVILness? Does Jeff still have the right to manufacture those electric motors? Or has it been patented by the guys that stole it?

We'll act on global warning once it's devastated some of our major cities. As a species we tend to act after the fact. The entire history of automobile safety is based on small improvements being made after devastating, fatal crashes. 9/11 is another example. The space shuttle Columbia another. Chernobyl yet another. It goes on and on. Nothing will be done about global warming until freak hurricanes have destroyed a few major cities, several animal species have gone extinct, and farmers have set up wheat fields on Antactica. And yes, I am a pesimist. (On an unrelated note, this post is giving me stong feelings of dejavu.)

On the plus side, we will have no problems surviving global warming. We could screw up the climate as much as we want and polute the Earth to kingdom come and we'd still survive (even if it meant dying early from polution-caused cancer.) We'd adapt. It would just be a shame to cause the destruction of our blue skys and the extiction of several plant and animal species, that's all. (Geez, even when I'm trying to be positive I'm pessimistic.)

I think it's about profit. Why act on it if it will lose people money? I mean the world is run by rich people who want to make more and more money. If we put limits and restrictions on the way business is done they lose money. They'd sooner fire workers than take pay cuts, or so it seems, so that happens. Rather than embrace the new technologies or standards, and profit from those, they instead cling to the old ways. It's kind of greedy.

This is not a blanket statement because I realise many high-profile businesses do try to move forward with the times, but the overwhelming sentiment I get is that most of them found a system that works and will cling to it till the very bitter end. Which just smacks of arrogance and greed to me, but then, I'm just whining at this point.

Exactly, The problem is that the people with the money to make the world a better place are profiting from destroying the earth.
Dude! Did I say that it is any worse now than it is then! I meant that AT THE MOMENT Bush is holding back any environmental reform, I don't give a flying f*ck about the past! What matters is what is happening NOW!

One thing it would be incredibly stupid to doubt is that at some point we are going to run out of oil! We can't abstain from changing our power sources until after we have run out! We can't invade oil rich countries forever like with Iraq!

P.S: is there a way to change a thread title? I think "global warming and oil crises" might be better.

Spazz, he was saying the Constitution prevents the President from having the kind of power people insinuate by saying he is holding us back. On a side note, that's not a misconceptions. The right to bare arms means owning weapons and at the time it was written that meant guns and really big knives.

Back on topic: Humans are not causing global warming, we are adding to it. Ice from the North Pole contained samples that could be used to measure the atmosphere in the distant past and what they have found indicates that the earth is comming out of the last Ice Age. The patern shows that we are due for a tropical age, like the dinosaurs enjoyed. That means the world is going to be warming up anyway, all our greenhouse gasses are doing is slightly, slightly speeding up the process. Besides, we can't do anything to save or destroy the world. Only human arrogance says that we could. No matter what humans do, even a nuclear holocast, would mearly damage the planet, killing off millions of species of living things. But the world would continue and thrive. What we can do is save ourselves.

Edit: The previous post was added between when I read and when I posted, so here's my addendum.

We aren't abstaining. The companies that are most threatened by the alternative changes are buying up the technology to maintain their current status quo and have the major advantange in the new market when resource shortage forces the change. I have no doubt they are developing the technology to a point in effeciancy that would be quite comprible to the current gas guzzlers so that when, not if, the change happens people don't feel like it's a setback in conviences ('cause God forbid I should be inconvienced for the betterment of all mankind). Look what happened a few years back when the prices first shot up to where they are now. Suddenly there was a quite reliable and economic(ish) Hybrid gas-electric. Whereas less that one year earlier they were saying reliable cars that utilize any form of electic power were still an inefficiant pipedream.

I have a problem with people saying that global warming is going to destroy the Earth. Let's look at this Scientifically. When we speak of global warming we are only talking of a rise in average temperature of about 3 degrees. The last time this happened we entered an agricultural boom. Plants tend to thrive upon the warmer air. Since when is this a bad thing?
Secondly there isn't going to be any major flooding. Here's an experiment. Take a glass of water and put ice in it so that it is floating (don't let it touch the bottom.) Now mark the water level. Let the glass sit till the ice melts. Check the water level. Did it rise? No, because the ice displaced the same volume of water keeping the level the same. At most if the ice caps were to completely melt, you would only see a rise in the water levels of around a few yards. Not exactly flooding now is it?

There are several flaws involved in the arguments proposed here.

First the president does have the power to affect the national platform on environmental concerns on many levels. Most directly he was the one who decided to reject the Kyoto accord. Furthermore he based his national policy on environmental restrictions on two main points. First he described our current system of rampant consumption as a “blessed way of life” worth protecting. Secondly his position on environmental controls is based on the proposition that industry will police its self. Within his first year he loosened over fifty environmental restrictions, some of which had been in place since the seventies. And who can forget the whole ANWAR issue.

Arguing that humanity lacks the capability to affect the environment demonstrates ignorance towards the science of global warming. We are unbalancing a system by reintroducing carbon into the system that has been out for millennia. The amount we reintroduce is sufficient to unbalance the system.

And the ice cube experiment is a little flawed. This children’s website demonstrates how. http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm

I was refering to the checks and balances system. You blamed the president for the failure to act. I said that, constitutionaly, the checks and balances system puts that sort of thing in the hands of, not the president, but the congress.

Please excuse me if I assumed that you had basic knowlage of our government system.

Actually one of the roles of the President is "Chief Economic Planner." So he does have more control over it then you seem to think Dynamite. And I'd recommend not insulting other people's knowledge on a subject when you too are misguided...
To the original direction this thread took, it'll be a looooong time before anyone really "act's" on the issue of global warming. Many companies are trying to create more environmentally friendly products(such as the Nissan Hybrid, it is Nissan that has that right? oh well, w/e), but getting them into the mainstream is hard. Sure some people will buy it, but not everyone can afford it. If the U.S. were to pass a law saying that there can be no cars that get less than 50 miles to the gallon (which in itself is a hell of a feat), then they would also have to give everyone who has a car a car that meets these requirements, and then people's greed would kick in and they'd have to give the people who already had a car that got 50 mpg, money to compinsate for teh fact that they weren't given a free gift... Even assuming that each car only costs $20k, and if we only did it for people who are 18 years or older, then using the 2000 census we'd be spending about $5,798,340,940,000 I mean, I know Bush can't keep track of money and has bankrupt everything he's ever touched save the Texas government, I don't think even he's dumb enough to spend that kind of money... it's just not feasible.

If you're going to be that way about it...
 

Going off topic for a moment, that, if it's even true, is not a constatutional position. It is, if anything, an informal position that has nothing to do with how the government actualy handles such things. This subject and related subjects are handled by the congress, more specificly the senate. If you don't believe me, then read the damn thing. I'm holding a copy of it as I type this just for you, since you decided to be that way about it, though I admit I deserved it.

Back on topic, maybe it will cost more to worry about it later, but if a company eats up all its profits on an investment that won't mature quickly enough to bring that money back in in a timely fassion, then the company goes bankrupt and folds up. Then they stop making any kind of cars, environmentaly friendly or no, and they take their jobs with them. Waiting means economic disaster when the problem strikes, but doing it now means economic disaster now and with troops overseas, weather we like it or not, we just can't afford it.

As for the government helping out, this is simply not a government job. My motto is, if the government has to get involved then it is already ruined beyond repair and should be scrapped and started from scratch. If the government has to get involved here, then we're all in one hell of a lot of trouble.

That actually proved my point. It stated that if the Ice caps did completely melt (which is highly unlikely) the water would only rise about 70 meters. That's not exactly global flooding. So why are we stressing?

Seventy meters is enough to flood a lot of places. For instance, nearly all of Florida would be two hundred plus feet underwater. The big coastal cities around the globe - gone. A huge bay where the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Germany used to be.

Of course, this is worst-case scenario, but even just a few meters of ocean rise would have a big impact on anyone living near a coastline. Also, it would disrupt ocean currents leading to weather pattern changes, like some sort of super El Nino. So the effects could be felt even if you live on a mountain range due to the shifting equilibrium of weather.

If I remember correctly, the government (which is headed by Bush, fyi) is helping fund research for cheaper models of cars using hydrogen powered cells. We already have a prototype, but it costs something like $3 million to make. The research is being done to cheapen the process and have cars out by 2020. So they're not just sitting on their asses waiting for a catastrophe before finding new renewable resources. They are actively persuing them now.

Other than that, I would say that the new hybrid cars are a step in the right direction. God bless the Japanese for taking the initiative on this matter and forcing the American companies to compete in this new market.


But I do agree that the oil industry does not want any alternative power sources out there. They should just adapt and take the pioneering road instead of trying to landslide it.

Going a little off-topic...

Frankly, it was rather pointless to sign the Kyoto accord. Bush does have the power to sign such a treaty, but as it is now, the Kyoto accord has a serious flaw in it.

If the US were to sign onto the Kyoto treaty, first they would have to ensure that the economy would not be devastated by the loss of jobs signing such a treaty would require. Even more bothersome to the US, is that those jobs would likely go to nations like India, which do not have any limit to their greenhouse emissions, so that they could maintain their level of production (which would be limited by the treaty in America).

The exact same amount of gas emissions would be present, the only difference would be the locality. India instead of the US.

Does it matter where the gases are being emitted if it's the same volume? Of course not. Because the effect is exactly the same, and thus there is no benefit to the world at large in signing the treaty as it is now.

If the purpose of the treaty is to reduce air polution in the world, it will fail miserably because other nations will not have limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. They wouldn't be reducing the pollution; They'd just be moving it around. And if the purpose of the treaty is made obsolete by the rules of the treaty, then why should we bother signing it, much less weaken our economy for the benefit of another nation at the same time?

The treaty is inherently flawed.

The only thing that would change by the US signing this treaty is that the factories would move to countries who do not have emissions limits. There would be the exact same amount of emissions, only the location of their origin would be different.

So, in terms of the environment, the treaty changes nothing.

For the US to sign the treaty would be moronic because a) it does nothing to help the problem and b) it is detrimental to them.

Are you kidding me? Look at this:

Before flood:
http://www.ilstu.edu/~jrwager/GEO201...rwithscale.gif

After flood:
http://www.ilstu.edu/~jrwager/GEO201...rwithscale.gif

Notice the large chunk taken out of the southeast US. The middle of South America is gone, most of the northern parts of Russia are gone, and northern Europe is devastated. There're some big chunks taken out of china and Austrailia too. I think this is something to stress about.

I may be misinterpreting this due to the fact that this entire conversation is being done in text,
but if you are in fact being sarcastic and attempting to be insulting then...
F*** you! I live in the UK! of course I am not going to know much about american politics am I?!

If you are just making an apology for making assumptions then thats ok! I don't mean to start a flame war simply because of a misconception.

back on topic!

To the point about flooding. Wouldn't New York be flooded by global warming? I haven't been there so I honestly don't know?

Also, even if global warming is not enough of a threat to us, running out of oil is. It is stupid to think that oil is going to last forever. It would be more economic and better to change to renewable power-sources before we run out because that would lead to other problems.

Also about minimum 50MPG cars, that was a slight exadgeration, I meant banning cars like the hummer that do 15MPG. Then moving on slowly to more and more effecient cars.

And hydrogen power would benefit hugely from nuclear power. To make hydrogen you just pass electricity through water for a long amount of time. Nuclear power would allow for that to happen, but people cannot seem to understand that the technology behind nuclear power has changed since Chenobil (Sp?). It is a lot better now but still humanity won't accept it!

If you don't like someone arguing with you on an unfamiliar topic, don't bring it up in the topic starter.



The last time I checked, the Bush administration was for nuclear power. *
True, there is little risk of meltdown in the modern nuclear power industry, but, politically, there is no difference between actual danger and perceived danger. One can argue that nuclear power is pro-conservation (takes away some dependence on fossil fuels) and one could just as easily argue that nuclear power hurts the environment.
It's a tough issue. Arguments are inconsistent along party lines and politicians tread that water very carefully. I think it’s an issue most politicians just brush aside because no one wants to deal with their constituencies because of it.

Problem is, we can't stop it. It's going to happen eventually. We can slow it down by A)Reducing how much we add to it, and B)Developing technologies that effectivly act like a world wide air filter.

Theres lots of stuff we could do, or avoid doing, but sad thing is, until it's a law most people won't. And even then if it's not enforced people will still jsut regard it as a useless law that they don't need to follow.. Sadly, this problem will most likely jsut get worse and worse until finally people realize we have to do soemthing, and then its too late. People are pretty selfish by nature, and most won't want to give up their Hummers and other SUVs...

I didn't like it because of the *apparent* sarcastic nature of his ramark (it is only in the form of text so I am willing to accept that I am wrong if that was not intentional). Its not because of 'what' he said, its 'how' he said it (if that is how he said it).

Even if George is for nuclear power, is everyone else? Its the people that have this fear of progress most. Most people seem to think radioactive things glow in the dark, or that you get super-powers when exposed to radio-activity. Thats what I don't like.

Knock it off, people, right now. Dynamite, lay off the sarcasm, and spazzhands, you don't have to retaliate with "fuck you," even in censored form. If there's any more of this in here I shall let loose the hounds of warnings and bans.

ok. Im sorry.

back to reality.

What would be practically the easiest way of cutting back on pollution and oil consumption. That would not be held back by the constitution of miserly oil tycoons?

Actually there are only two real problems with nuclear power. The first is that the waste is pretty vicious, even with concrete and lead coffins it kills whatever aria it is placed in. secondly the plants produce a lot of thermal pollution, screwing with the local ecology and all that jazz. But the biggest problem is we have already used up 30% of the worlds fissable material, and that’s with only a few power plants, now what would happen if the entire world went nuclear.

My only statement about global warming is that this can't be determined, yet. Some "experts" say 30% of the gas that hurts the atmoshere comes from termites. Therefore, shall we kill all termites?

I don't think so, as long as ANY form of life exists, global warming will continue.

Now we can cut off excess waste we make, but still, global warming may continue.

Sato, what do you mean by hurt the atmosphere. If you are referring to global warming your probably way off. If your referring to chlorine depletion of the ozone then that is possible but unlikely. And anyway you can find a scientist to support any theory from the earth being 6 thousand years old to well this guy http://najmita.150m.com/szukalski/ma...tisyny_ang.htm

Just because a guy has a PhD, or clams to have one doesn’t mean they aren’t nutty.

Well, I did believe global warming was the idea the earth was slowly increasing in temperature, by the greenhouse effect becoming TOO extreme. And some say flatulation can cause gases to build up.

by the way guys, great job blaming bush for the senate voting 92-0 against kyoto. go back and read the constitution, the senate has to ratify a treaty first. then the president signs it.

I'd just like to say that global warming is NOT fact. Its just a theory. A lot of which has recently been disproven.

The West Antartic Ice Sheet, for instance, is not melting but is rather growing thicker. *sigh* I really don't feel like writing a lot right now...so tommorrow probably expect a longer argument. Anyway, even if Global Warming WAS real, it poises absolutely no threat to the Earth.


Here, put this in your brain and spin it.
http://www.greencity.com/globalwarm.htm

That link was far from convincing. This doesn't sound at all like how the scientific community works, but rather like a view of it skewed in a very particular way.

And that:

Is an empty statement. Of course it's not a threat to the Earth. The Earth won't melt from it or anything of the sort, and life, even humanity will thrive even if it is real and led to its extreme. On the other end, as stated by some arguments made earlier in the thread, it is a threat to a good deal of people.

i just dont understand spazz's continued ranting about nulear power. nuclear power is great and all, but there is only so much uranium in the world, and it isnt like you can go in your backyard and dig some up. also, when environmentalists complain about america's energy they complain about nuclear waste as much as fossil fuels.

also, they HAVE converted (or at least a lot of people) to renewable energy. when i was on a road trip to california i saw FIELDS full of wind power gatherer thingies (yes, that IS a technical term...). also take into account stuff like hoover dam (which produces a whole lot of energy). point being that it isnt like everyone's sitting on their hands.

i think that the answer to the energy problem is to further research fusion. its possible now, and in fact has already been done. (for those that know this next part bear with me) the temp required to produce fusion is so great that no material known can contain it. so they use a magnetic field to contain it instead, but this uses more power than is gained by the fusion reaction, so it isnt a viable source of energy at the moment.

one pair of scientists once claimed to have discovered cold fusion, but they were unable to prove it to anyone. perhaps cold fusion IS possible though, and its worth looking into at least.

to sum up: pollution isnt as bad greenpeace would have us believe. we are going towards renewable energy (cant forget those hydrogen cars). 70 meters of flooding would be bad, but probably wont happen. humans arent the only reason for the warming trend. the earth will survive whatever we put it through. better, cleaner power is on the way.

When will people act? When it's proven that it is actually a threat and humans can do anything about it. (Hint: neither has been proven.)

Just because "experts" say it is doesn't mean that all other "experts" agree. Consider studies suggesting that global climate change as has been measured is completely natural, be it caused by the sun or cyclical ice ages and interglacials or continental drift. Consider also that average global temperatures in the Mesozoic era was ten degrees (Centigrade) warmer than it is today (scroll down a bit) but actually had more biomass and biodiversity.

There are a lot of facts from the "The end is near" crowd - they're drowning out the facts from the "No it isn't!" crowd. You need to consider both sets of facts, not just the ones that a single ideology espouses.

True, very true. I definately agree with you on that. To explain, I want nuclear power because it is cleaner than fossil fuel power and even though it will only last a short period, that short period may be long enough to make renewable energy a practical reality. We need energy while setting other sources up. Id rather use nuclear power than fossil fuels.

P.S: about fusion, I may be wrong with this but there are materials that when cooled to about 175 Kelvin become so good at conducting electricity that it can run for several minuites without a power source if the circuit is complete. Would those be capable of maintaining a magnetic field strong enough? (unless the heat of the reaction made it immpossible to cool the material down that much).

What do you think?

i'm no physics major, so i dont really know a whole lot about magnetic fields. variables to consider in your plan would be the energy cost of keeping those materials at 175 K and the strength of the electricity they would maintain. also, the field must require a buttload of energy, because fusion produces several times more energy than fission, and the current magnetic fields still use up more energy than the fusion creates.

which is a long way of saying i dont know

Superconductors. 175 Kelvin is cold. That's -98 degrees celcius cold (-144.4 Fahrenheit). It would probably be impossible to keep something that cold when it's right beside a reaction taking place at 100,000,000 degrees celcius. Besides, I don't know if the superconductivity would help that much. Even with zero resistance in the superconductive wire, you still need to pump a lot of current through it to produce a strong enough magnetic field, and that takes a lot of energy. Besides, I would think any benefit gained would be counterbalanced by the costs of running a gargantuan cooling system.

Also, most likely a newer larger form of Hydrogen bond breaking in water should be found a great resource, since it renews itself, and is clean.

(Yes, my post is short, but I don't have much to say)

Cold fusion is at a level of physics that I don't plan on taking, unless I decide to go to graduate school for physics instead of electrical engineering. Superconductors generate no resistance, which is great that you'll transfer current faster and you'll lose less charge due to the imperfections of the wire. But nothing in this world is ideal. A capacitor cannot maintain a charge forever, and you cannot get something for nothing.
A lot of conservation technologies do not really conserve anything. For example, computers waste A LOT of power. If every computer made this year was 50% more efficient, that power saved could light up Chicago for 6 months. I could engineer wiring and components made out of high quality metals and extrinsic diamonds and ceramic superconductors that could make a computer that efficient, but it takes work and power to create that equipment. The cost of processing- the energy, money, chemicals (many are hazardous) needed outweighs the money and resources that would be saved during that computer’s lifespan. You end up with a net loss. Right now, for this example, it is more environmentally friendly to use the old computer model even if it is a power hog.
But we may eventually find a cheaper way to process materials, and the initial cost will go down. Then conservation becomes actual conservation.

As for cold fusion your probably thinking of a rather strange effect that has been observed as late. This should help clear things up:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEhowtoprodu.pdf
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY.../0904nfus.html

Holy, those are some very interesting links Sithdarth. It sounds like they've really made some breakthroughs in cold fusion since it was abandoned in the early 90s.

There have been many advances in a lot of obsecure areas of science. I posted a few more links in the fools rush in thread and I edited my last post with come additional infromation. It did get a little long though.

Back on topic here are some links to other alternative means of power and conservation efforts that could help with the CO2 problem:

http://www.wavegen.co.uk/
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/f...te.cfm?ID=1050

Oh, and your looking at a future in mechanical engineering, so I may be one the one helping computers become more cost effective :P

But I'd rather work for the space program...