global warming

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Alex123
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Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.
This is to be expected when we are at a tiny 396.80 ppm, while it was almost as high as 7,000ppm before. Earth can't be so unbalanced to maintain unnaturally LOW levels of CO2 and temperature.
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Dan74
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Re: global warming

Post by Dan74 »

Alex123 wrote:
Dan74 wrote:PS Our contribution is far from nothing. It is consistent, increasing and significant.
0.0014664% is very significant...

Yes, it is. You are not listening. And I'm not interesting in continuing. Believe what you wish, Alex. The information is out there. Kim's provided it, Buckwheat's provided it and I've linked some good stuff too. If people actually want to understand, they can. And if they just want to spout ill-informed nonsense, they can too. It's a free world!
_/|\_
Buckwheat
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Re: global warming

Post by Buckwheat »

Alex123 wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:I am saying this: do you want human activity to an abrupt shock to the natural system, or should we live in harmony with the global ecosystem that is the foundation for our lives on Earth? Yes, there have been 5 mass extinction events in 600 million years since the Cambrian explosion. There is also a mass extinction event in the 10,000 years since humans started congregating into larger societies.
What do you propose? That we go to pre-industrial world? DO you know what that means? Have you lived in a world without trucks and cars? How will you feed cities with multi-millions of people living in them?
Right, because the only options are to continue down our globally suicidal path, or resort to hunter-gatherer society.

There is a third option: We carefully consider our impacts on the globe (everything we do is done by 7 billion other people) and try to reduce them. This means walking instead of driving. This means forgoing the social reward of a job that feeds on pollution for a humble job that sustains life efficiently. These are indeed hard choices, but that is no excuse to do nothing.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
Buckwheat
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Re: global warming

Post by Buckwheat »

Alex123 wrote:Image
7000 ppm was over 500 million years ago, and if memory serves, during the Cambrian period, the biological forefront was to become multi-cellular. The life that existed at that time was radically different than the current biome.

Even looking at the age of dinosaurs, when CO2 levels were in the low thousands, global temperatures were much higher than today. So much so, that if we suddenly revert back to those conditions, there would be a mass extinction event. Do you want to live through the end of the human race?

If we want to look at life on Earth at the time scale of hundreds of millions of years, then the discussion is totally different. In a few hundred million years, humans will likely be extinct, and our discussion are moot. But if we even want to survive a few hundred more years, we need to address the pressing issue of greenhouse gas emissions.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
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Alex123
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Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:There is a third option: We carefully consider our impacts on the globe (everything we do is done by 7 billion other people) and try to reduce them. This means walking instead of driving. This means forgoing the social reward of a job that feeds on pollution for a humble job that sustains life efficiently. These are indeed hard choices, but that is no excuse to do nothing.
What should a person living in COLD climate do? Ever tried to walk many miles to work when it is freezing (below - 10F) outside?

Do you realize HOW the food gets to the supermarket? Large trucks deliver it nearly daily to shops in the city. Without using gasoline, how do you expect large cities to be fed?
Buckwheat wrote: ... the only options are to continue down our globally suicidal path, or resort to hunter-gatherer society.
Human population is estimated to be 1 million people in 10,000BC while today it is about 7.073 billion.
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/history ... growth.htm

Times are different. Do you want many people to die off in order for us to maintain low enough population to live like hunter gatherers?
Last edited by Alex123 on Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Alex123
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Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:
Alex123 wrote:Image
7000 ppm was over 500 million years ago, and if memory serves, during the Cambrian period, the biological forefront was to become multi-cellular. The life that existed at that time was radically different than the current biome.

Even looking at the age of dinosaurs, when CO2 levels were in the low thousands, global temperatures were much higher than today. So much so, that if we suddenly revert back to those conditions, there would be a mass extinction event. Do you want to live through the end of the human race?
The Climate doesn't "care" about Humans, dinosaurs, or multi-cellular organisms. It is what it is and life adapts (or doesn't) to it. My point that when we consider the Overall picture, today's CO2 and temperature are indeed extreme. Too low. For millions of years the levels were much higher, and that is more usual.
Today's levels are the unusually low ones.

And natural climate is still much more powerful than us. Volcano eruptions can cool the planet (hopefully not into another Ice Age). So we are not doomed.
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines June 15, 1991, an estimated 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and ash particles blasted more than 12 miles (20 km) high into the atmosphere. The eruption caused widespread destruction and loss of human life. Gases and solids injected into the stratosphere circled the globe for three weeks. Volcanic eruptions of this magnitude can impact global climate, reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface, lowering temperatures in the troposphere, and changing atmospheric circulation patterns. The extent to which this occurs is an ongoing debate.

Large-scale volcanic activity may last only a few days, but the massive outpouring of gases and ash can influence climate patterns for years. Sulfuric gases convert to sulfate aerosols, sub-micron droplets containing about 75 percent sulfuric acid. Following eruptions, these aerosol particles can linger as long as three to four years in the stratosphere.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Volcano/
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Alex123
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Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Dan74 wrote:Yes, it is. You are not listening. And I'm not interesting in continuing. Believe what you wish, Alex
I've used Kim's information and it made no sense when I plugged in the numbers. It is not the matter of belief, but of analyzing and checking the available data.
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: global warming

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

Alex123 wrote:I've used Kim's information and it made no sense when I plugged in the numbers. It is not the matter of belief, but of analyzing and checking the available data.
No, it's not. You have made your own formulas and your own models to explain things that you don't understand. And it's okay to not understand - I don't really get a lot of this stuff either - but it's not okay to assume that you can make up your own science here. We have repeatedly pointed out the errors you are making here, kindly I hope, but you are not listening.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
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Alex123
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Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:No, it's not. You have made your own formulas and your own models to explain things that you don't understand.
None of what I've said is totally my own. I did my own research and use common sources of information.
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manas
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Re: global warming

Post by manas »

I have hesitated to 'come out' properly here, but I think I can safely do so, and not get pilloried for it. We are all friends in the Dhamma after all, and that surely overrides any difference of opinion we might have regarding AGW.

I was one of the first people i know to jump on board when it first became popular to be concerned about this issue. I believed in it and was almost losing sleep over it. That is because I have loved this beautiful and wondrous planet we live on, with it's amazing ecosystems and biodiversity, since I was a little kid, and I still do. Although unemployed at the time, I went on to a '100% wind, solar and hydro electricity plan' where, by paying a bit more for my power, they would invest more in these technologies.

But over the years I also began to read some disturbing things. That the measuring stations are in locations where one would expect higher temperatures, for example, thus skewing the data. That most of the climate research is basically computer modelling and not 'hard' science at all. Plus the way that the mainstream media taints anyone who expresses doubt about it with the emotive term, 'denier' with it's implications - we all know what they are hinting at with that term, I think. And does everyone remember how there was this incident where scientists did not get the data that they wanted, and so simply changed it to suit themselves? And we trust these people?

I still live as sustainably I can, by the way. I try to organise life so there is as little driving as possible, I buy organic when I can afford it, and I would love some solar panels (if only I could afford them). But I think that the real issues are the destruction of forests and ecosystems, the erosion of the topsoil, pollution of the biosphere with pesticides, nanoparticles, and genetically modified organisms, the destruction of clean underground water by fracking...take your pick, we have a lot of real issues to work on, and these are the things I will continue to try to raise awareness of. As for CO2, we've had periods in Earth's history when the concentrations were MUCH higher than they are today; it's being used as a 'scapegoat' to distract the masses from those other, truly urgent issues I mentioned, I believe. Where is the alarm about GMO's here? Anyone concerned about the growing land-mass made of plastic in the Pacific? Did the 'water' coming out of your tap catch on fire lately, due to nearby fracking? These are verifiable concerns, not just based on computer modelling.

Metta.
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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Alex123
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Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Hello Manas,

Thank you for writing that. I agree. I do wonder why increasing nuclear waste and radiation is not being talked about.

I suggest reading http://enenews.com/ site. That is what I worry about.

Fukushima crisis has not being solved yet. Huge amount of radioactive water is being pumped into Pacific Ocean. IMHO it is MUCH more serious than carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 does not cause cancer or birth defects. Man made radiation (cesium 134,137, etc) contributes to cancer. CO2 is naturally produced. Nuclear isotopes/waste is not. Here I believe is the danger.

Too bad I don't hear the outrage about:
"U.S. bluefin tuna still contaminated with Fukushima radiation — Study: Cesium found in 100% of small, recently migrated tuna tested"
http://enenews.com/new-study-u-s-bluefi ... una-tested

Or
"US West Coast bore “significant brunt” of hot particles from Fukushima disaster, study claims -Bellona"
The report goes on to say that “the Fukushima radioactive plume contaminated the entire Northern Hemisphere during a relatively short period of time” after [3/11]
http://enenews.com/us-west-coast-bore-s ... ms-bellona

Or some Japanese children being FORCED to eat contaminated food:
“Don’t be a chicken” mayor tells parents who are concerned their children are eating radioactive lunches
http://enenews.com/dont-be-chicken-mayo ... ting-japan

Japanese mayor says students are gaining knowledge by eating radioactive food in school lunches
http://enenews.com/japanese-mayor-educa ... ctive-food

Tokyo official blasts parents who want kids to avoid ingesting radioactivity at school: “It is important to share the pain”
http://enenews.com/tokyo-official-blast ... share-pain
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Ron-The-Elder
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Re: global warming

Post by Ron-The-Elder »

Alex123 wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:
Alex123 wrote:Image
7000 ppm was over 500 million years ago, and if memory serves, during the Cambrian period, the biological forefront was to become multi-cellular. The life that existed at that time was radically different than the current biome.

Even looking at the age of dinosaurs, when CO2 levels were in the low thousands, global temperatures were much higher than today. So much so, that if we suddenly revert back to those conditions, there would be a mass extinction event. Do you want to live through the end of the human race?
The Climate doesn't "care" about Humans, dinosaurs, or multi-cellular organisms. It is what it is and life adapts (or doesn't) to it. My point that when we consider the Overall picture, today's CO2 and temperature are indeed extreme. Too low. For millions of years the levels were much higher, and that is more usual.
Today's levels are the unusually low ones.

And natural climate is still much more powerful than us. Volcano eruptions can cool the planet (hopefully not into another Ice Age). So we are not doomed.
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines June 15, 1991, an estimated 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and ash particles blasted more than 12 miles (20 km) high into the atmosphere. The eruption caused widespread destruction and loss of human life. Gases and solids injected into the stratosphere circled the globe for three weeks. Volcanic eruptions of this magnitude can impact global climate, reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface, lowering temperatures in the troposphere, and changing atmospheric circulation patterns. The extent to which this occurs is an ongoing debate.

Large-scale volcanic activity may last only a few days, but the massive outpouring of gases and ash can influence climate patterns for years. Sulfuric gases convert to sulfate aerosols, sub-micron droplets containing about 75 percent sulfuric acid. Following eruptions, these aerosol particles can linger as long as three to four years in the stratosphere.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Volcano/
Interestingly, exhaust particulate from diesel powered vehicles acts in the same manner as volcanic particulate and adds to global cooling. It's a shame that this same particulate contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as alpha-nitro-pyrene which is a powerful human carcinogen. Why aren't the climatologists whining about that? Guess CO2 trumps carcinogens and radiological wastes from Japan.

May all beings find peace, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy. :anjali:
What Makes an Elder? :
A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.
But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.
-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
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Dan74
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Re: global warming

Post by Dan74 »

manas wrote: But over the years I also began to read some disturbing things. That the measuring stations are in locations where one would expect higher temperatures, for example, thus skewing the data.
Hi Manas,

This addresses your point:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface ... ements.htm
Surveys of weather stations in the USA have indicated that some of them are not sited as well as they could be. This calls into question the quality of their readings.

However, when processing their data, the organisations which collect the readings take into account any local heating or cooling effects, such as might be caused by a weather station being located near buildings or large areas of tarmac. This is done, for instance, by weighting (adjusting) readings after comparing them against those from more rural weather stations nearby.

More importantly, for the purpose of establishing a temperature trend, the relative level of single readings is less important than whether the pattern of all readings from all stations taken together is increasing, decreasing or staying the same from year to year. Furthermore, since this question was first raised, research has established that any error that can be attributed to poor siting of weather stations is not enough to produce a significant variation in the overall warming trend being observed.

It's also vital to realise that warnings of a warming trend -- and hence Climate Change -- are not based simply on ground level temperature records. Other completely independent temperature data compiled from weather balloons, satellite measurements, and from sea and ocean temperature records, also tell a remarkably similar warming story.
_/|\_
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manas
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Re: global warming

Post by manas »

Dan74 wrote:
manas wrote: But over the years I also began to read some disturbing things. That the measuring stations are in locations where one would expect higher temperatures, for example, thus skewing the data.
Hi Manas,

This addresses your point:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface ... ements.htm
...

More importantly, for the purpose of establishing a temperature trend, the relative level of single readings is less important than whether the pattern of all readings from all stations taken together is increasing, decreasing or staying the same from year to year.
Thanks Dan, but this paragraph above concerns me. We need more accuracy, imo. Actual numbers do matter, not just 'trends'! I do not understand why temperature measuring devices could not be spread out more evenly over the planet. But even then, it's a pretty big planet, with lots of climatic variations. How could we ever be sure that overall the Earth's total surface temperature was increasing? Or that the trend being observed from the stations they do have, isn't just natural variation? Or that it's human-released CO2 that is the primary culprit (I say human *released* because, we did not create it - we are simply releasing back into the atmosphere, what the prehistoric plants had originally absorbed from it millions of years ago, when the oil and coal deposits were formed. I actually wonder why no-one ever mentions that. I'm not even a scientist, and I figured that out.

Now, should we stop burning coal and oil anyway, and move towards alternatives (but not nuclear)? Yes, because they are also highly polluting and environmentally destructive in other ways. But that's another story.

:anjali:
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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Kim OHara
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Re: global warming

Post by Kim OHara »

manas wrote:I have hesitated to 'come out' properly here, but I think I can safely do so, and not get pilloried for it. We are all friends in the Dhamma after all, and that surely overrides any difference of opinion we might have regarding AGW.
Hi, Manas,
Thanks for making your position clear.
manas wrote:But over the years I also began to read some disturbing things.
(1) That the measuring stations are in locations where one would expect higher temperatures, for example, thus skewing the data.
(2) That most of the climate research is basically computer modelling and not 'hard' science at all. [and later: These are verifiable concerns, not just based on computer modelling. ]
(3) Plus the way that the mainstream media taints anyone who expresses doubt about it with the emotive term, 'denier' with it's implications - we all know what they are hinting at with that term, I think.
(4) And does everyone remember how there was this incident where scientists did not get the data that they wanted, and so simply changed it to suit themselves? And we trust these people?
All well-known memes!
(1) Dan addressed this but if you want more detail try http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... re-trends/ or http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface ... vanced.htm. The issues are known and have been exhaustively analysed, and the real numbers are out there but basically the trend is what is important, anyway.
(2) Computer modelling is especially important in climate science because we only have one world and we can't run a series of experiments - especially in real time. But the models have been improving even faster than the hardware they run on. See http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm. And computer models are tested every which way, constantly checked against each other and (as much as possible) against the real world. They really are pretty accurate and reliable and in many cases are the only way of obtaining data. And in other cases, scientists do get out into the real world and collect all the available data - there are even teams of people combing old ships' logs for weather observations.
(3) You're getting the "emotive" and (unspoken) "Nazi" implications straight from the denialists. They don't like the term because their whole campaign depends explicitly on maintaining there is "reasonable doubt" about AGW. There isn't any - see http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 20#p236121. See also "Merchants of Doubt" for what is really going on - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt. The denialists would prefer to be called "skeptics" but anyone who now denies the basics of AGW does so from ignorance or in an attempt to deceive, and calling them "skeptics" is lying. I won't do that, as you may have noticed. :tongue: I do regret having to be offensive but I can't come up with a better name for them.
(4) Climategate was a smear campaign based on a crime. Many separate independent enquiries cleared the scientists of any wrong-doing but the mud seems to have stuck. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_R ... ontroversy or (more briefly) http://climatecrocks.com/2011/08/23/cli ... -in-kenya/.
manas wrote:I still live as sustainably I can, by the way. I try to organise life so there is as little driving as possible, I buy organic when I can afford it, and I would love some solar panels (if only I could afford them).
Great!
manas wrote:But I think that the real issues are the destruction of forests and ecosystems, the erosion of the topsoil, pollution of the biosphere with pesticides, nanoparticles, and genetically modified organisms, the destruction of clean underground water by fracking...take your pick, we have a lot of real issues to work on, and these are the things I will continue to try to raise awareness of. As for CO2, we've had periods in Earth's history when the concentrations were MUCH higher than they are today; it's being used as a 'scapegoat' to distract the masses from those other, truly urgent issues I mentioned, I believe. Where is the alarm about GMO's here? Anyone concerned about the growing land-mass made of plastic in the Pacific? Did the 'water' coming out of your tap catch on fire lately, due to nearby fracking?
Metta.
So many problems, so little time!
And that is a genuine, serious problem. All we can do is put our efforts where we see the greatest need.
Some can only be addressed locally so it's good to get out and join (e.g.) a riverbank cleanup. Others can be addressed politically - Get-Up, Avaaz, Earth Hour, etc. Go for it!
But we can't ignore AGW. It is already driving extreme weather events - hurricane Sandy and others, Pakistan floods, etc - and the slower changes are driving species to extinction regardless of pollution, GMO's, etc.

:namaste:
Kim
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