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Detroit, 12:49 PM
Tue Nov 10
30 posts in the last 24 hours
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03/02/09
03/02/09
Besides, I seem to remember when they were pushing the "Ice Age" theory pretty hard; I'll just wait for the pendulum to swing back again.
03/02/09
Do carbon offset sellers still believe that environmentalists are stupid enough to fall for these sorts of medieval indulgences? Whatever, I'm just glad 24 has more car chases.
03/02/09
[www.nytimes.com]
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I've come to accept that the rate of temperature change on earth is increasing, most likely as a result of man-made CO2 emissions.
From what I can tell, the change in CO2 emissions required to reduce or reverse our effect is not even remotely feasible on a worldwide scale. Essentially, we can't get there from here.
It appears, short of some really good greenhouse gas scrubbing or temperature lowering inventions that the world is going to get significantly warmer no matter what.
That leads me to believe we (as individuals, a nation, or a species) might better direct our efforts to preparing for and abating the effects of climate change.
[/Tangentially related climate change rant/]
03/02/09
03/02/09
i.e.:
If we cut our CO2 emissions by 0/10/25/50% and hold them there indefinitely what is the real, net result when if comes to temperature?
Are we just changing the eventual steady-state result? Are we just slowing an inevitable thermal runaway?
The discussion needs to shift away from "is climate real and man made" to "what are we hoping to accomplish?"
03/02/09
Oh and a bottle of Makers might be a good preparation tool.
03/02/09
*South, in the southern hemisphere.
03/02/09
But I think the overall goal should be to not radically change the chemical composition of the atmosphere, because of the incredibly wide-ranging effects it could have, not the least of which are global climate change.
03/02/09
Typically, when bodies heat up, they eventually reach a steady-state temperature where the rate of heat production and the rate of heat dissipation become equal. This is because the hotter something gets relative to its environment, the faster it sheds heat to the environment.
Sometimes the opposite occurs, where you have a positive-feedback loop. Namely, the hotter something gets, the higher the rate of heat production. This could be very bad for the Earth, with an "end-game" of us heating up beyond what's tolerable.
These are the kinds of things I'd like to know.
03/02/09
And if you wanted to find the steady-state temperature of the earth, you could probably boil it down to a fairly simple heat transfer problem. You have an incoming heat flux from the sun, some heat retention factor that's correlated with the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and then a heat flux leaving the earth that's radiated between the temperature of the earth and the black body temperature of space. Do an energy balance on the whole thing and solve for the average temperature of the earth. Though you can see from all the simplifications made how difficult coming up with an accurate projection really is.
03/02/09
On the other hand, we need to look at what will happen based on realistic expectations of worldwide CO2 emissions.
Start with the assumption that the rate of increase in production (2nd derivative of total CO2, 1st derivative of CO2 production) remains what it is now.
If that's the case, does the earth head towards unsustainability?
If yes, then what reductions are required to get to a point where the earth is hot, but habitable?
If no, then what's the steady-state temp, and what does the world look like at that steady state temp?
Lastly, it doesn't take long for this to boil down to a discussion about how much influence we'd like to have on the earth. There's no way it's going to be zero, and different people/nations have different perspectives on what's acceptable. I guess I'm just trying to point out that trying to "freeze" the condition of the earth at a given set point is both futile and foolish. Of course, this doesn't give us carte blanche to monkey with the planet as we see fit.
It gets circular quickly...
03/02/09
03/02/09
All it is is an excuse for polluters to keep polluting and not have their Humvees spray-painted or lay awake at night knowing that every breath they take brings the world that much closer to total annihillation. Its this culture of guilt. WTF? Did everyone all of a sudden turn Catholic?
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And even Karl Marx would probably admit that at least she's easy on the eyes.
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03/02/09
Do you want to know why I love trees? Because you can lie down under them on a moonlit night, watch the branches move in the breeze, and ball your brains out.
03/02/09
03/02/09
I think that we definitely need to use our resources responsibly, but I think there is a point where this obsession goes too far.
If you want to be fully honest about it, you could reduce your carbon footprint to 0. But that doesn't leave much of a future for you.
03/02/09
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Kinda like.. you're stuck in a small room. A whole bunch of people are pooing, so it's okay if you let a fart slip from time to time. The whole room stinks, anyways.
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03/02/09
If anyone could do it, it'd be Jack Bauer.
03/02/09
Jack: DAMMIT Chloe! I need to find that bomb!!!
Chloe: Calm down, Jack. I'm going as fast as I can. We don't have enough intelligence to locate it that quickly!
Jack: You don't understand! Don't know you know how much kilograms of carbon dioxide it's going to release in the atmosphere? My God. It'll suffocate this world in hundreds of years!!! Think of our great grandchildren!!! So shut up and find me that bomb!!!
Sigh. I love trees, but this is going to far. Not the carbon offsetting, but going around telling everyone that you're carbon offsetting.
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Save the Tempos!
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This means that most of 'em can burn.
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