Global Warming

[adios 717]

I would say its common sense really. If you upset the natural balance, the consequences are unlikely to be good. And an inevitable consequence will be rising sea water - bad news if you're dutch or from the Maldives....

82337[/snapback]

 

Given how long it has taken man to evolve a very quick and extreme change will have dire consequences, but we are extremely adaptable and the natural balance is a lot more robust than you're suggesting. I just think there's a bit of religion in what you're saying. Just because we do bad things to the earth, does not mean we will be punished.

 

EDIT: Rikko, where do planes fit into the scenario above?

Edited January 20, 2006 by DotBum

[Renton 22001]

I study this in detail on my course and there is no concrete proof that it exists. However i think it is more likely then not that it does and we should err on the side of caution. Which is the way the environmental legislation is heading with the implementation of first the IPC and now the IPPC acts.

 

As for the recent trends how does one explain the 1960's blip where the average T dropped for about 7 years in a row despite industry being at an all time high then,  and houses being fuelled with coal boilers which were far far worse then the current gas system.

 

The increase in temperature could easily be due to the increase in the suns activity over the past 200 years as solar flares and hot spots are becoming more frequent. There is alot of doomsday scenarios going on but most of them are using the most dubious statistics to make there assumptions. The more realistic standards are predicting a far more modest rise then the ones being published by the national press.

82317[/snapback]

 

You seem to have missed the point in your studies - we are talking about an accumulation of gases over time, a graph that keeps going upwards. The 1960s are towards the bottom of that line, their output of gas is not really relevant. Besides, with the emergence of China and India as industrial soceities, and the continued high consumption fossil fuels by the Americans, emissions are at an all time high.

 

You describe it as a blip, well blips happen but that doesn't alter the trend. As it happens, almost every meteorlogical record known has been broken in recent years. Also, I don't accept it has anything to do with the sun unless you can provide solid evidence of this.

82322[/snapback]

 

 

The time line of temperatures on my studies starts at thousands of years ago with predictions taken for ice cap drillings. The 60s are an anomoly with no explaination. We only have good accurate recordings for the past century and better still the past 50 years. These do fall within the error readings placed on the predictions from thousands of years ago. That is why there is no proof, if you look at the long time scale we are at the moment in a "blip" an anti ice age if you will.

 

The gases (the most damaging ones C1-C4 hydrocarbons (methane is 24x worse per tonne then CO2, with the others worse again still) do slowly degrade over time. You seem to have missed the point. THe fossil fuels being burned now are no where near as bad as those from the 60's and 70's. While we may be burning more they are pumping less damaging shite into the atmosphere then those of 30-40 years ago. A factory from that era would not be allowed to operate pretty much anywhere in the world now.

 

China certainly and India to lesser extent have green technologies and are infact better in that then the majority of British ones as they have already met the likes of the ISO14001 standards for environmental management as they believe (probably rightly) that if they didn't they would face a mass ban on importing thier goods from western countries due to a large environmental load.

 

As for all records being broken, that works both ways. Hot and COLD. The weather is becoming more extreme our systems more robust and accurate statistically speaking you expect a really hot/cold time every 100 years or so...

 

Rob,

 

As for BP supporting it, its what the public wants to hear so it makes both good PR and marketing sense. I do agree that it exists, i never once said i didnt think it was. All i said was the doomsday scenarios being predicted are little more then scaremongering by the press, which lets be honest is what they do best.

82344[/snapback]

 

 

Good post Rikko, some stuff I was unaware of there, particularly regarding India and China, who I thought had little if no regulations (I'd love a link). Isn't China opening up an average of one coal-burning power station a week though? Do they really have the technology and will to extract the more damaging gasses?

 

Regarding the non-CO2 green house gasses, I have a query. I agree they have a greater effect molecule by molecule than CO2, but how abundant are they in comparison? If CO2 is relatively insignificant as you imply, then I confess I have been misled by vitually everything I have read on the matter and I'll shut up.

 

Anyway, there are so many variable to consider I doubt any of us can have much of an educated opinion on it. There is global dimming for instance, which paradoxically may be protecting us from the worst of global warming - a protection that will be lost if we clean the Skys like SpongeBob suggested.

 

I guess we'll find out in the next few decades....

[rikko 20]

The increase in air travel isn't good in terms of CO2 being emitted as they pump out a hell of alot per person travelling, far worse then a car, but it aint gonna stop.

 

The current technologys that can produce the kind of power we need are:

 

Wind (but on non windy days we're up a certain creek with no propulsion device) hence the look by alot companys and universitys into storing it as hydrogen attached to some cyclo-hexane type molecules. Other problem being no one wants one near them. The UK has 60% of europes wind resource denmark is mostly powered by wind now. The other area of research is looking into placing them on disused north sea oil platforms where there is always high winds and attaching an electric cable to the current oil lines to get it back to the UK.

 

and

Nuclear, works fine by has bad press and a waste problem.

 

I'd take nuclear on the short - medium term with wind on the long term as my solution.

[spongebob toonpants 4134]

So basically Hell actually will freeze over before we win another trophy

[donaldstott 0]

I have to monitor climate change (we tend not to use global warming as nuckle draggers think that it'll be great when it's as warm as the Carribean in Walker) for my job, just a couple of quotes you might be interested in.

 

There is no debate over whether it exists anymore, it's now a question of how bad it's gonna be, and what we can do to stop it.

 

www.climatechallenge.gov.uk is a good site download the video it's well worth a look...

 

 

 

The ten warmest years on record have all been since 1990. Six of the ten warmest years on record in the UK were between 1995 and 2004. In Europe, the August 2003 heatwave was probably the hottest for at least 500 years.

During August 2003, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the UK was taken in Brogdale in Kent. It was 38.5° C. Between 4 and 13 August 2003, 2,000 people in the UK died as a result of the heat. – www.climatechallenge.gov.uk

 

The current 2005 values for the Northern Hemisphere make it the warmest on record and the current value for the Southern Hemisphere make it the fourth warmest. Out of the past ten years, only 1996 does not fall in the ten warmest – its place is taken by 1995. - Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (15 Dec 2005)

 

For the fourth consecutive year, NSIDC and NASA scientists using satellite data have tracked a stunning reduction in arctic sea ice at the end of the northern summer. The persistence of near-record low extents leads the group to conclude that Arctic sea ice is likely on an accelerating, long-term decline.

All four years have ice extents approximately 20 percent less than the 1978 through 2000 average. This decline in sea ice amounts to approximately 1.3 million square kilometers (500,000 square miles). This is an area roughly equivalent to twice the size of Texas. – US National Snow and Ice Data Center report (NSIDC) (29 Sep 2005)

[adios 717]

The increase in air travel isn't good in terms of CO2 being emitted as they pump out a hell of alot per person travelling, far worse then a car, but it aint gonna stop.

82358[/snapback]

They could also be causing the spike in emissions that pokes a hole in your theory?

Edited January 20, 2006 by DotBum

[rikko 20]

Good post Rikko, some stuff I was unaware of there, particularly regarding India and China, who I thought had little if no regulations (I'd love a link). Isn't China opening up an average of one coal-burning power station a week though? Do they really have the technology and will to extract the more damaging gasses?

 

Regarding the non-CO2 green house gasses, I have a query. I agree they have a greater effect molecule by molecule than CO2, but how abundant are they in comparison? If CO2 is relatively insignificant as you imply, then I confess I have been misled by vitually everything I have read on the matter and I'll shut up.

 

Anyway, there are so many variable to consider I doubt any of us can have much of an educated opinion on it. There is global dimming for instance, which paradoxically may be protecting us from the worst of global warming - a protection that will be lost if we clean the Skys like SpongeBob suggested.

 

I guess we'll find out in the next few decades....

82357[/snapback]

 

The amount of CO2 emitted is far more then the others. The 2 key gasses in geenhouse effects in order are CO2 then CH4. The CH4 is easier to eliminate as by burning it to CO2 you make it 23x less damaging.

 

THe big thing about global warming is we cant prove it exists until its too late basically. So we may be wasting aload of time and effort in trying to prevent a non existant thing but if we don't we could all be in a far worse situation.

 

I'll have a look for the data, but so far i can only find stuff from about 5 years ago. Google about China and ISO14001. The germans are shit hot on these environmental systems aswell (EMAS and ISO14001)

[donaldstott 0]

The increase in air travel isn't good in terms of CO2 being emitted as they pump out a hell of alot per person travelling, far worse then a car, but it aint gonna stop.

 

The current technologys that can produce the kind of power we need are:

 

Wind (but on non windy days we're up a certain creek with no propulsion device) hence the look by alot companys and universitys into storing it as hydrogen attached to some cyclo-hexane type molecules. Other problem being no one wants one near them. The UK has 60% of europes wind resource denmark is mostly powered by wind now. The other area of research is looking into placing them on disused north sea oil platforms where there is always high winds and attaching an electric cable to the current oil lines to get it back to the UK.

 

and

Nuclear, works fine by has bad press and a waste problem.

 

I'd take nuclear on the short - medium term with wind on the long term as my solution.

82358[/snapback]

 

Problem with nuclear is that the public don't trust it in terms of safety. If the government were to recomission further nuclear build, it is highly likely that they would build on the existing sites, where acceptance is likely to be less of a problem. Even then nuclear only ever provided 20% of our electricity.

 

Wind/hydro/biomass/nuclear/clean coal and wave/tidal need to all be employed. But first things first we all need to stop using as much power as we are.

 

There was a report about 6 months suggesting that if we all turned off our stand by lights on the tv they could shut down a coal fired power station.

[rikko 20]

The increase in air travel isn't good in terms of CO2 being emitted as they pump out a hell of alot per person travelling, far worse then a car, but it aint gonna stop.

82358[/snapback]

They could also be causing the spike in emissions that pokes a hole in your theory?

82363[/snapback]

 

WEll the engines are becoming more efficient as are car engines, and power plants. The latter 2 pump out far far more in total then planes due to sheer numbers. The planes will have an effect but in terms of scales it doesnt even come close to those two.

 

1000 flights a day and each is 1000 x worse then a car (neither stat is true but illistrates the point). THat only requires 1,000,000 cars to do the same (assuming same journey time). And theres alot more then that about in this country...

[Renton 22001]

Good post Rikko, some stuff I was unaware of there, particularly regarding India and China, who I thought had little if no regulations (I'd love a link). Isn't China opening up an average of one coal-burning power station a week though? Do they really have the technology and will to extract the more damaging gasses?

 

Regarding the non-CO2 green house gasses, I have a query. I agree they have a greater effect molecule by molecule than CO2, but how abundant are they in comparison? If CO2 is relatively insignificant as you imply, then I confess I have been misled by vitually everything I have read on the matter and I'll shut up.

 

Anyway, there are so many variable to consider I doubt any of us can have much of an educated opinion on it. There is global dimming for instance, which paradoxically may be protecting us from the worst of global warming - a protection that will be lost if we clean the Skys like SpongeBob suggested.

 

I guess we'll find out in the next few decades....

82357[/snapback]

 

The amount of CO2 emitted is far more then the others. The 2 key gasses in geenhouse effects in order are CO2 then CH4. The CH4 is easier to eliminate as by burning it to CO2 you make it 23x less damaging.

 

THe big thing about global warming is we cant prove it exists until its too late basically. So we may be wasting aload of time and effort in trying to prevent a non existant thing but if we don't we could all be in a far worse situation.

 

I'll have a look for the data, but so far i can only find stuff from about 5 years ago. Google about China and ISO14001. The germans are shit hot on these environmental systems aswell (EMAS and ISO14001)

82368[/snapback]

 

 

Well, I agree with that, especially about the "should we act?" conundrum. Trouble is I suspect the powers that matter have already made their minds up on that one....

[rikko 20]

The increase in air travel isn't good in terms of CO2 being emitted as they pump out a hell of alot per person travelling, far worse then a car, but it aint gonna stop.

 

The current technologys that can produce the kind of power we need are:

 

Wind (but on non windy days we're up a certain creek with no propulsion device) hence the look by alot companys and universitys into storing it as hydrogen attached to some cyclo-hexane type molecules. Other problem being no one wants one near them. The UK has 60% of europes wind resource denmark is mostly powered by wind now. The other area of research is looking into placing them on disused north sea oil platforms where there is always high winds and attaching an electric cable to the current oil lines to get it back to the UK.

 

and

Nuclear, works fine by has bad press and a waste problem.

 

I'd take nuclear on the short - medium term with wind on the long term as my solution.

82358[/snapback]

 

Problem with nuclear is that the public don't trust it in terms of safety. If the government were to recomission further nuclear build, it is highly likely that they would build on the existing sites, where acceptance is likely to be less of a problem. Even then nuclear only ever provided 20% of our electricity.

 

Wind/hydro/biomass/nuclear/clean coal and wave/tidal need to all be employed. But first things first we all need to stop using as much power as we are.

 

There was a report about 6 months suggesting that if we all turned off our stand by lights on the tv they could shut down a coal fired power station.

82371[/snapback]

 

Clean Coal is a myth. It just moves the point of the pollution elsewhere (where they take coal and make it clean).

 

The one that is interesting is Bio fuels though, they are CO2 neutral and involve making petrol and diesel from plants. Problem si we don't have enough land to grow enough crops to make the fuel. I believe brazil has got this on a small scale though.

[donaldstott 0]

The increase in air travel isn't good in terms of CO2 being emitted as they pump out a hell of alot per person travelling, far worse then a car, but it aint gonna stop.

 

The current technologys that can produce the kind of power we need are:

 

Wind (but on non windy days we're up a certain creek with no propulsion device) hence the look by alot companys and universitys into storing it as hydrogen attached to some cyclo-hexane type molecules. Other problem being no one wants one near them. The UK has 60% of europes wind resource denmark is mostly powered by wind now. The other area of research is looking into placing them on disused north sea oil platforms where there is always high winds and attaching an electric cable to the current oil lines to get it back to the UK.

 

and

Nuclear, works fine by has bad press and a waste problem.

 

I'd take nuclear on the short - medium term with wind on the long term as my solution.

82358[/snapback]

 

Problem with nuclear is that the public don't trust it in terms of safety. If the government were to recomission further nuclear build, it is highly likely that they would build on the existing sites, where acceptance is likely to be less of a problem. Even then nuclear only ever provided 20% of our electricity.

 

Wind/hydro/biomass/nuclear/clean coal and wave/tidal need to all be employed. But first things first we all need to stop using as much power as we are.

 

There was a report about 6 months suggesting that if we all turned off our stand by lights on the tv they could shut down a coal fired power station.

82371[/snapback]

 

Clean Coal is a myth. It just moves the point of the pollution elsewhere (where they take coal and make it clean).

 

The one that is interesting is Bio fuels though, they are CO2 neutral and involve making petrol and diesel from plants. Problem si we don't have enough land to grow enough crops to make the fuel. I believe brazil has got this on a small scale though.

82377[/snapback]

 

The other clean coal option is shoving the gases in caverns under the north sea, but that seems like a ticking time bomb to me.

 

As for biofuels, another issue is the fact that they are generally mono-cultures and therefore feck up the land.

 

But we are going to have to start using them (or something similar) because A) we need to secure our electricity supply how will I get to work once the petrol has run out

[Rob W 0]

"The other clean coal option is shoving the gases in caverns under the north sea, but that seems like a ticking time bomb to me."

 

Well the N Sea gas you burn at home has been in the same rocks for 150 million years without coming out so I guess the CO2 will be OK down there for my lifetime

[Rob W 0]

"Rob,

 

As for BP supporting it, its what the public wants to hear so it makes both good PR and marketing sense. "

 

Aye but they are spending several hundred million testing out their ideas - expensive PR!

 

I think they can see what is happening and reckon if they can come up with a solution (or even a partial solution) they'll be able to make $$$$$ from it - nowt wrong with that - beats whining on about it in the Guardian I guess

[donaldstott 0]

"The other clean coal option is shoving the gases in caverns under the north sea, but that seems like a ticking time bomb to me."

 

Well the N Sea gas you burn at home has been in the same rocks for 150 million years  without coming out so I guess the CO2 will be OK down there for my lifetime

82406[/snapback]

 

A good point well made, although it's increasingly more likley to come from a big cavern under Russia, rather than the North Sea.

[Meenzer 15718]

Weren't you lot (generalisation) going on about how bloody cold and snowy it was in England and Europe in general about a month ago? *could be mistaken but I doubt it*

81843[/snapback]

It was minus 15 here overnight. Fuck's sake.

[Guest alex]

"The other clean coal option is shoving the gases in caverns under the north sea, but that seems like a ticking time bomb to me."

 

Well the N Sea gas you burn at home has been in the same rocks for 150 million years  without coming out so I guess the CO2 will be OK down there for my lifetime

82406[/snapback]

I would imagine there will be a slightly different process involved when gas is put there by people (as opposed to millions of years of sedimentation etc.) making it a somewhat redundant comparison. Also, the North Sea bed has many 'pock marks' where natural gas has escaped at various times.

[Rob W 0]

"The other clean coal option is shoving the gases in caverns under the north sea, but that seems like a ticking time bomb to me."

 

Well the N Sea gas you burn at home has been in the same rocks for 150 million years  without coming out so I guess the CO2 will be OK down there for my lifetime

82406[/snapback]

I would imagine there will be a slightly different process involved when gas is put there by people (as opposed to millions of years of sedimentation etc.) making it a somewhat redundant comparison. Also, the North Sea bed has many 'pock marks' where natural gas has escaped at various times.

83360[/snapback]

 

It gans in , it gans out the same way - gas is not put there by sedimentation - that's the rocks it's in - the gas (and oil) sits in the spaces in between the fine grains (= Porosity) and S N Sea gas came from the Coal Measures (the same stuff that caused pits to explode) when the coal is buried deep enough to "cook". Putting gas back in artifically just reverses the process of extraction - you blow rather than suck........................... Porosity in the N Sea is around 5%-15% of the rock volume in the main gas reservoirs

 

Note this is different from Gas Storage - which involves hollowing out artifical holes or tanks in salt bodies. and these effectively have 100% proosity

 

You know the gas won't leak from the old fields as it never did in the past - that's why they were able to produce it in the first place - it would have gone millions of years ago otherwise

 

Shallow biogenic gas does occur everywhere under the oceans - but this is caused by material rotting in situ in very recent rocks - not the stuff that comes form 10,000 ft down............................... Biogenic gas is a hazard for drilling rigs

[Guest alex]

That's me told!

[Rob W 0]

Aye well someone was sugegsting if we put away enough CO2 now we can let it out again if we get into an ice age.......

 

Thats the thing about humanity - an ever present desire to modify the environment for our comfort

[Guest alex]

Aye well someone was sugegsting if we put away enough CO2 now we can let it out again if we get into an ice age.......

 

Thats the thing about humanity - an ever present desire to modify the environment for our comfort

84186[/snapback]

Actually setting out to modify the climate sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. The results are worrying enough when we do it by accident.

[Renton 22001]

Regarding the use of nuclear power, did anyone see the dramadoc about Chenobyl last night? I was aware of most the story before, but I didn't realise how close they got to catastrophe if a thermal explosion had occurred - bye bye Kiev. The Ukraine and most of Belarus would have been completely uninhabitable for centuries - it doesn't bear thinking about.

 

Of course, a major part of the problem was that the Soviet authorities tried to cover it up and essentially went into denial. The gigacounters at the control centre only went up to 3.6 rads (someone correct me if I'm worng about these units - my memory for physics is terrible), so they reported this figure back to Moscow, knowing full well the likely figure was much higher. In reality, it was 15000 rads (a lethal dose is geneally accepted as 400 iirc). People's bodies were literally disintegrating, their DNA was completely shattered; as one person said, it was if their very human essence was taken away.

 

I still believe nuclear power has an important role to play however, and a repeat of Chernobyl (which had a faulty design) is very unlikely. I have to be honest and say I wouldn't fancy living next to a reactor though.

[Guest alex]

Some tragic stories attached to Chernobyl like. Particularly the firemen and so on who were whisked off to Moscow to die in secret. As you mentioned, Renton, the doses of radiation were so high that their bodies simply ceased to function on virtually every level.

[Jusoda Kid 1]

Aye well someone was sugegsting if we put away enough CO2 now we can let it out again if we get into an ice age.......

 

Thats the thing about humanity - an ever present desire to modify the environment for our comfort

84186[/snapback]

Actually setting out to modify the climate sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. The results are worrying enough when we do it by accident.

84188[/snapback]

 

Sounds like a hair brain scheme Shepherd would come up with, FFS.

[Renton 22001]

Some tragic stories attached to Chernobyl like. Particularly the firemen and so on who were whisked off to Moscow to die in secret. As you mentioned, Renton, the doses of radiation were so high that their bodies simply ceased to function on virtually every level.

84214[/snapback]

 

Early on, the power station staff and firemen didn't know the risks (and went to their deaths in ignorance, fully trusting the authorities). Later workers were told the risks and that death was certain, but they still went ahead and did their duties, knowing that if no-one else did an explosion was certain which would destroy their country. These people are true heroes, they should have statues in their honour rather than ones of Lenin imo.