Thread: Global Warming

I'm hoping someone that knows a thing or two about these issues comes along to the forum. I'm just curious if anyone has done any studies to determine just how long man could survive on the planet if the temperature rose say 10 degrees. What's the point where man just no longer can sustain life? I figure most the creatures on the planet would suffer first as man can adapt pretty well. Would the animals be smart enough to migrate to a cooler climate as the worlds heat zones shifted ?

I answered this somewhat on IAP, but from a recent interview on Now with Bill Moyers, a scientist did a control test of one acre in the colorado rockies, heating up the area 5 degrees for more than 2 years. The control group was untouched. And the heated group started growing sage brush, with the flowers and greenery dying off, etc.

But what was really unsettling was that they weighed the dirt, apparently there is CO2 (I think that's what it is) in the ground, and it was disappating under the extreme temperature change into the air, thereby compounding the Global warming problem. This means that global warming will increase at an exponential rate as more CO2 gets into the air as the termperature rises.

Scary results if you ask me. He said they thought the temperate would rise in the next 50 years 5 degrees, but due to this recent development it's going to happen much sooner, and once this gets under way, it's going to be very difficult to reverse the process.

Kind of makes you wonder about mars, seeing as how there is clearly evidence water once existed perhaps life did at one time also. Perhaps nothing complex but life none the less.

Chances are we'll launch high orbit giant saucers to try and block out some of the suns rays to slow the heating process, not sure even that would help from the sound of things. Living in Arizona perhaps I'll be better accustomed to the heat.

So what's everyone's take on "The Day after tomorrow" , any scientific backing at all, or just holyweird?

An exponential growth of CO2? I doubt it. Mathemetically, yes. But in the actualy environment, I doubt this will happen. CO2 is heavily tied in the process of Ice-ages, and although it may get warmer first, I believe an Ice-Age will come 'soon'. Actually, we are already overdue.

The rate on which The Day After Tomorrow happened, however, was complete bullocks. Although I liked the movie, I hated the story they tied into it with the brave, smart boy and his pop coming to his rescue.

What we need to do is make a switch to electrical cars, use the US's expanded Nuclear weapon's arsenal (Just kidding about the weapons ) to make sure all oil-drilling companies seize their crimes and switch to Nuclear Reactors. Instead of making plastics, make Carbon-fiber products. Much safer also.

I find it interested how all the technology exists, yet the Oil industry is actually capable of halting the best thing ever for mankind. Selfish lot, them.

Mr U

Yup, corporations are so damn greedy, they stop progress so it doesn't cut into their profit margins, thanks to the politicians they own in DC.

I liked Day After Tomorrow. Although it happening in a day or two was unrealistic. They could've cut that wolf scene out too.

I've heard that most of the things they talk about in that movie are factually based, unlike the movie The Core. I can't necessarily prove this though. And HU is right, the timeline is way off.

I liked the movie for the most part, watched it at the theaters and then again here on my 82 inch. I made sure I turned the AC way down and turned off the lights, my family was freezing both psychologically and literally.

Getting the global average temperature to increase by 10 degrees F or C is highly unrealistic. And as we study tempertures in the Cretaciuos or Jurassic periods the temperatures were far warmer than now. In fact the averate mean world temperature was approximately 1 degree warmer during the Planet Optimum period of 900-1300AD.

During that time the temperatures of Europe were as such that grapes were grown in northern England, Greenland was less inclimate and Iceland was a nice place to live. And the world was experiencing one of th greatest scientific and economic booms since the ancient times.

I am an optomist by nature. and I can see that more people suffer and expire under colder climates than warmer. Further, the jury is still in on what would happen if the polar regions were to rise a few degrees. The odds are that vaster amounts of snow would accumulate, as a too cold area tends to receive less percipitation. Antarctica is a nice example. Greenland receives more there.

Remember, bad news is usually wrong even though it sells well.

Getting the global average temperature to increase by 10 degrees F or C is highly unrealistic. And as we study tempertures in the Cretaciuos or Jurassic periods the temperatures were far warmer than now. In fact the averate mean world temperature was approximately 1 degree warmer during the Planet Optimum period of 900-1300AD.

One question John, when you say "were far warmer than now" and then mention 1 degree, is one degree far warmer, or do you have another number?

I find this interesting, this discussion of global warming. Mainly, not because I don't think it is occuring but rather because I think the yardstick is wrong and gives warped results.

First we have very poor ideas of what the atmosphere of prehistory was. Our main ideas come from plant samples in the form of impressions left in rocks and what we can glean from the shape of them left in stone and from things like stuff embedded in amber and the like. Our ideas of what the atmosphere was like comes from captured samples of air bubbles embedded in ice. The air bubbles are not exactly pristine samples so can not be used to an exacting degree for a representive of that times' atmosphere.

Lastly, the global warming model we use to project temperatures in are suspected to contain errors. Why? The group that developed the global warming projection submitted to a committee the combined results of the study along with the data to back it up. The paper was accepted as a worthy study and upon that is based our yardstick computer model today. Later after the study was accepted the same group discovered an error in their calculations. They submitted this correction to the committee which denied the revision. As a result of this error the projections err when it comes to recorded known temperature data, putting in assumed data to agument the known data. The results of the error produce what is commonly called the "hockey stick" diagram, showing a rapid increase in temperatures, oddly the upswing conciding with the start of recorded known weather data.

What I am saying here is NOT that global warming is or is not happening. What I am saying is that we don't have the yardstick to measure just how we are affecting the global climate to predict with any accuracy what maybe in the near or far future.

Lastly, the global warming model we use to project temperatures in are suspected to contain errors. Why? The group that developed the global warming projection submitted to a committee the combined results of the study along with the data to back it up. The paper was accepted as a worthy study and upon that is based our yardstick computer model today. Later after the study was accepted the same group discovered an error in their calculations. They submitted this correction to the committee which denied the revision. As a result of this error the projections err when it comes to recorded known temperature data, putting in assumed data to agument the known data. The results of the error produce what is commonly called the "hockey stick" diagram, showing a rapid increase in temperatures, oddly the upswing conciding with the start of recorded known weather data.

This is true, and widely known. Saying that many scientists don't use the flawed model. Some still do. Still the conclusions are close to the same. They did the same thing with salt intake studies in the US. Don't eat too much salt it's bad for you. Then they discovered they had a decimal shifted. Turns out it wasn't as bad for you as first thought. In the mean time people were eating that no-salt crap. I'm sure most of those people are now dead from cancer or some other problem. Nasty stuff.

To answer the initial poster, mankind can adapt, but there are many major issue with global warming. Animals and plants are already shifting their habitats. Weather will change, and if large amounts of ice melt, then the resulting change in the ocean's circulation patterns might change the weather radically. Sure, past climate was also hot, but the important thing is the rate of change, which is unprecedented. Areas that now get rain may dry up, and dry areas may get more rain. The local plants that have adapted to existing conditions will die, resulting in erosion, floods, and huge forest fires exacerbated by insect and disease damage in the trees and plants who's health is less than optimal. This leads to political and economic instability. If you are poor, than get rich, because they will take care of themselves, everyone else is fucked. Smog has mitigated the warming of increased CO2, but the skies are getting clearer, paradoxically due to environmental regulations. Huge amounts of carbon are sequestered in the tundra of the northern arctic, which we know is melting quickly.

To the people focused on mathematical errors, they will occur, but that's no reason to reject the entire theory. Quite possibly, you are being manipulated by the substantial corporate interests who want deregulation.

Remember, bad news is usually wrong even though it sells well.

Hell, the money involved in warming denial is orders of magnitude greater than that gained by the media or scientists.

What we need to do is make a switch to electrical cars, use the US's expanded Nuclear weapon's arsenal (Just kidding about the weapons ) to make sure all oil-drilling companies seize their crimes and switch to Nuclear Reactors. Instead of making plastics, make Carbon-fiber products. Much safer also.

The manufacture of products in general produces pollutants, even when the product itself is safe. Few people are willing to admit that even more radical changes are in store for us, our whole lifestyle is based on cheap abundant fuel, and it won't last. Mother nature is about to bitch-slap us good.

Unfortunately, it is not the heat change directly that causes problems. Very simply put; a temperature change in the order of a degree or two worldwide could melt enough polar ice to sufficiently dilute heavier, saline water causing it not to sink in the northern hemisphere and so the cycle governing gulf streams is broken and large areas of coastline around the atlantic drop in temperature sharply causing failed crops, animals starve, we starve.

Global warming is going to happen whether or not we humans are here. Besides, we (humanity) contribute only about 1/10th of the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

it's that tenth that's putting the world at risk. Naturally a much stronger balance would prevail. Ice ages are a natural cycle, but not if we antagonise them. Though i agree any effort now seems like too little too late, it's only been 200 years since the industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels became industrialised and already we can measure the difference world wide.

Originally Posted by kestasjk

Global warming is going to happen whether or not we humans are here. Besides, we (humanity) contribute only about 1/10th of the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

Even if you assume that (which is wrong), then there is still a worldwide crisis looming. In addition to the warming, and the disruption in crop production, there is a number of other factors that will amplify the problem. Modern crops are heavily fertilized and sprayed with pesticides, which are both made with fossil fuels. The supply of fossil fuels will soon exceed the cost of production, so there's that. And, warming will change patterns of rainfall, which are already effected by deforestation. So, where will the population of the planet, currently supported by fossil fuels and stable climate- get it's food? Cheap fossil fuels power all the agricultural machinery, in addition to the transportation of produce. With food shortage and fuel shortage, political instability erupts. We are already seeing this in Bush's war for oil. America is built on a one-time boost of millions of years of solar energy concentrated into rapidly dwindling oil pockets.

Rapidly dwindling? Trust me we're not going to run out of oil any time soon.

Originally Posted by kestasjk

Rapidly dwindling? Trust me we're not going to run out of oil any time soon.

Then why are prices through the roof? Oil as a resource is going to run out, it's just matter of time and I believe that we should be pushing a lot harder for alternatives.

Rapidly dwindling? Trust me we're not going to run out of oil any time soon.

Why should I trust you?
US oil production peaked in 1970 at 11.3 million barrels a day, and by 1980 fell to under 9 million, and is currently under 6 million. The same thing has happened to UK oil from the North Sea, and will happen to Middle Eastern oil.

While we might never run out of oil totally, that fact is almost irrelevant, since demand will exceed supply, driving the cost up until the current economic model based on cheap fossil fuel will become obsolete.

Originally Posted by Locke

Originally Posted by kestasjk

Rapidly dwindling? Trust me we're not going to run out of oil any time soon.

Then why are prices through the roof? Oil as a resource is going to run out, it's just matter of time and I believe that we should be pushing a lot harder for alternatives.

Oil prices are high because of growing demand, not dwinding oil wells. I spoke to a woman in the oil industry who told me the methods of extraction and refinement we have these days mean we can go back to abandoned oil wells and mine the masses of crud we wouldn't have looked at before.

It's the same with mining most minerals; before you needed concentrations to be incredibly high before it was worth setting up a mine, nowadays refinement is so efficient that you can get minerals out of mines which people in the past wouldn't have even looked at.

Even the (informed) skeptics give it over a century before oil runs out, and that'll give us plenty of time to find alternatives.

Informed skeptics figure that about 50% of all oil on earth has already been extracted. They also figure about 37 years till all the oil easily extracted is gone. Oil production is no longer increasing, but demand is increasing, thus high prices. It is in the interest of oil companies to give the impression that their fields have a long way yet to go, but even in the largest field in Saudi Arabia, they are pumping so much seawater in there that half the liquid coming out is water. Most of the remaining oil underground will probably never be extracted.

kestasjk fails to take into account the diminishing returns of depleted oil fields. Once it takes more energy to extract the oil than you can get out of it, even if it approaches this ratio, then our glory days are over. We will not know when peak production is reached until years afterward, but it may have happened already. To give you a sense of perspective,

"The ratio of energy expended in getting the oil out of the ground to the energy produced by that oil in the US oil industry has fallen from 28:1 in 1916 to 2:1 in 2004 and will continue falling."
(The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler)

By the time alternatives are required, we may not have the oil to develop them. Even nuclear power plants cannot be contructed with nuclear technology alone. There is a narrow window of opportunity here, and it may be closing rapidly.

"37 years till[sic] all the oil easily extracted is gone".. It'll be much longer until all the slightly harder to extract oil is extracted. You're also failing to take into account improvements in oil refining technology.

As for "The Long Emergency"; I wonder how Mr. Kustler knows how much energy was expended in mining and refining oil in 1916.. My point being I wouldn't start hoarding food after reading a book which sells by scaring people.

Besides; the slowly increasing price over the next 40-100(+) years will be a nice incentive for the corporations to find/research a better source of fuel. I find the fact that there will be lots of money in saving humanity very reassuring, I doubt anyone would bother if there wasn't..

global warming is going on and yes at some point even if humans did not exist it would still happen but the fact still remains that we need more energy efficient cars and trucks
if we dont we might as well hang a sign on earth that says

Abandon faith all ye who enter here :|

Spidergoat said this:

"America is built on a one-time boost of millions of years of solar energy concentrated into rapidly dwindling oil pockets."

Brother, that was downright brilliant. You compacted 20th-century history in a damn nutshell. Kudos to you. 8)

'Insanity' said in the first post on this thread:

"Would the animals be smart enough to migrate to a cooler climate as the worlds heat zones shifted ?"

Research says some of them already are doing this. Not elephants or zebras or tigers, yet. Frogs, some insects, etc. 8)