ForumGarden

Hiya everyone, I am just back from Dublin where I attended a lecture by Dr David Manning, one of the co-chairs of the IPCC, which is the intergovernmental panel on climate change. He deals with the physical sciences aspect of the report, the physics and chemistry. Tonight he discussed the latest report and its findings on those terms, I have to say that what I heard tonight was deeply alarming to me, and I am sure than anyone else in that room who is scientifically trained in this area felt the same.

The evidence is clear that the planet is warming rapidly and that this is being caused by carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere that is a direct result of human activity. That is unequivocal. The best-case scenario (i.e. all the governments of the world start in the immediate future to drastically cut CO2 emissions, deforestation, and start programs to remediate environmental degredation) is that the climate will still warm by 1.8 degrees celcius over the next century, that the level of CO2 will be 500 ppm by mid century, much of the southern greenland ice-sheet will melt in summer as will the artic ice sheet, and that sea levels will rise by approximately 1 meter by 2100. That does not take into account of as yet unpredicatable possible sudden climate "events" such as feedback loops from unpredictable sources, which are impossible to predict accurately with our current level of knowledge.

Thats the best case scenario, and it means that during the 21st century the climate is going to change in a manner that is unprecendented in human history, and I reiterate thats the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that we try to continue "business as usual" and in that case we can expect 4 to 6 degree celcius temperature rises in the global mean, and a CO2 level of 800-1,000 ppm by 2100, widespread climatic degredation across most of the land area of the planet, sea level rises of 3-5 meters, and consequences that are impossible to predict as they are so unprecendented. Basically we will have a planet that is very, very different from the one we are used to, and its hard to see how our societies would survive that outcome.

The scientific debate on this is now over, this is the situation, and its much later in day than most people realize. I have to admit that what I heard tonight was worse than I had realized, particularly in how little time we have left to do something about it, and the severity of what's already inevitable, and I work in this field.

Its strange, even though I am used to reading about these things, when you actually see the evidence first hand from such an eminent scientist it has really hit me that this is for real, its not a science-fiction disaster movie, its reality, and we are running out of time to prevent a global catastrophe of the first order. Large areas of our planet are already changing probably for good, the seas are warming, the greenland ice sheet is melting, the North West passage is thawing out, most of the world's glaciers are melting rapidly, and the impact all this is having on the global climate situation is getting worse every year.

What's most depressing is that even now, a lot of people either don't believe this is because of the heating up of the planet because of human activity, or don't care, or just would rather ignore it. And as we all know how this world works, how complex and difficult the solutions are, and how much political and economic cooperation its going to take in such a divided planet, but most critically how little time we have left and the inevitable 30-40 years (at least) its going to take to change our systems of energy production, its clear to me that we are in serious trouble. :-1

It's down right frightening.

minks;722993 wrote: It's down right frightening.


I agree minks, it is frightening; and the scale of it makes it hard for us as individuals to feel we have any power to do anything useful outside of being a bit more energy concious and press our leaders to do something practical about solving these problems. But even if the majority of people just did that, it would make a very big difference. I guess the positives are that even at this late stage its still possible to do things that will prevent the worst case scenario from happening, but if we keep going as we are going we are simply going to make much of the world a very unhospitable place for our children and grandchildren.

It does seem like there is a change in that finally many politicans across all the worlds continents are waking up to this. We simply have to decouple our use of carbon based fuels from our energy-generation systems. I don't know whether that's practically going to lead to enough being done to really reduce emissions to a sustainable level and also upgrade our countries defences against the impacts that are going to happen. I guess as individuals and societies there have always been, and will always be dangers and threats that we have to live with and this is just another one, but it is real, and we will have to do something collectively to minimize it, and quickly.

Galbally;723012 wrote: I agree minks, it is frightening; and the scale of it makes it hard for us as individuals to feel we have any power to do anything useful outside of being a bit more energy concious and press our leaders to do something practical about solving these problems. But even if the majority of people just did that, it would make a very big difference. I guess the positives are that even at this late stage its still possible to do things that will prevent the worst case scenario from happening, but if we keep going as we are going we are simply going to make much of the world a very unhospitable place for our children and grandchildren.

It does seem like there is a change in that finally many politicans across all the worlds continents are waking up to this. We simply have to decouple our use of carbon based fuels from our energy-generation systems. I don't know whether that's practically going to lead to enough being done to really reduce emissions to a sustainable level and also upgrade our countries defences against the impacts that are going to happen. I guess as individuals and societies there have always been, and will always be dangers and threats that we have to live with and this is just another one, but it is real, and we will have to do something collectively to minimize it, and quickly.


yes and that is a tough sell for fossil fuel rich places like here

I'll say something about this. When Katrina hit everybody mostly reacted to the lack of aid made available to the victims. Rightfully so. However, the most baffling, perplexing thing for me (and remember, I always know what I'm talking about :wah:) is how nobody talks about the condition of the damn. I mean the fact that scientists, engineers and others had been warning about this problem for years prior and noone took them seriously.

I believe the same thing is happening with climate change. For cryin' out loud, we don't have to give 75% of our income to climate scientists, but we can make the lazy effort to listen to them! People, are we so incredibly foolish not to?

Well, what can a person expect. We are robots, um, I mean earthlings, afterall.

Peace,

Erin

A topic close to my heart Gally. It is frightening how we humans are abusing planet earth given the warning signs. I do my bit locally. .....some folks might like to calculate their own carbon footprint...it'll open your eyes....



http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html





......by the way....HI everyone.....:-6



an after thought......how the devil do we get countries like China and India on board ?

Bez;723222 wrote: A topic close to my heart Gally. It is frightening how we humans are abusing planet earth given the warning signs. I do my bit locally. .....some folks might like to calculate their own carbon footprint...it'll open your eyes....



http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html





......by the way....HI everyone.....:-6



an after thought......how the devil do we get countries like China and India on board ?


I actually think that there is a lot that just simple energy efficiency like turning the central heating down a couple of degrees (that saves a huge amount of energy, even just 2 or 3 degrees lower) using the newer light bulbs, not using the car as much, all of that will do a lot. But to be honest only urgent national and international action to change our main transport, energy, and agricultural systems and practices, as well as reforestation, in the developed and just as importantly the developing countries is going to really crack this nut.

We simply have to decouple our technical society from its complete reliance on fossil fuels, I think in the medium term that means we will have to consider a far wider use of nuclear power to generate electricty, as well renewables and some energy crops etc and perhaps carbon sequestration technology for any fossil fuel plants still running. For our cars, they will have to get to zero emissions, and we are talking within 20 years, that means no petrol or diesel engines by that point, thats a tall order. We also need to upgrade our own intrastructure, costal, drainage, transport, all of it, to withstand more extreme and frequent weather.

We need to also look at large reforestation programs across the world, and also its imperative that the current and accelerating destruction of the rain-forests will have to be stopped completely. All these things need to happen on a global scale, in Europe, North America, China, India, Japan, and the rest of the world. This is obviously a very tall order as we are talking about fundamental change across the world, and its not going to be easy, but it can be done. But if governments don't start to act immeadiately we will run out of time, as these changes are going to take 20-30 years so we can't wait any longer.

There is a summit in Bali in 4 weeks on this new report, if the major players try to fudge any of these issue, then you can more or less take it that we are not going to be really be able to tackle this in time to prevent a very dangerous level of change in the climate. I have to admit that I am not that optimistic.

Does "business as usual" mean keeping the status quo or does it take into account the ever increasing rate at which we are generating greenhouse gasses?

Much as there is against the idea, I truely believe that the only possible route at this stage in the game is a massive increase in the use of nuclear power.

For all of the problem that it would bring it is the only way I can see of bringing down fossil fuel emissions whilst a parallel effort seeks to bring about

a sea change in our approach to the use and abuse of energy.

There is a fairly strict limit on how much of our energy requirements can be provided by the renewable sources and, beyond that, some form of reliable and consistent power generation is required. Given that we will not be able to bring down our energy usage by a sufficient percentage in the medium term we must move our power generation away from fossil fuels and nuclear remains the most likely alternative.

Bryn Mawr;723424 wrote: Does "business as usual" mean keeping the status quo or does it take into account the ever increasing rate at which we are generating greenhouse gasses?

Much as there is against the idea, I truely believe that the only possible route at this stage in the game is a massive increase in the use of nuclear power.

For all of the problem that it would bring it is the only way I can see of bringing down fossil fuel emissions whilst a parallel effort seeks to bring about

a sea change in our approach to the use and abuse of energy.

There is a fairly strict limit on how much of our energy requirements can be provided by the renewable sources and, beyond that, some form of reliable and consistent power generation is required. Given that we will not be able to bring down our energy usage by a sufficient percentage in the medium term we must move our power generation away from fossil fuels and nuclear remains the most likely alternative.


Business as usual, would be the status quo with the projected rises in greenhouse gas emissions based on the current rate of growth (70 percent more CO2 was emittted from 1970 to 2006). Of course its impossible to predict how much more CO2 we will be emitting if we keep going the way we are going, so its a projection.

I agree about Nuclear power, its got to be considered seriously for the medium term, as its the only viable replacement we have for fossil fueled power stations with current technology.

Galbally;723316 wrote: We simply have to decouple our technical society from its complete reliance on fossil fuels, I think in the medium term that means we will have to consider a far wider use of nuclear power to generate electricty, as well renewables and some energy crops etc and perhaps carbon sequestration technology for any fossil fuel plants still running. For our cars, they will have to get to zero emissions, and we are talking within 20 years, that means no petrol or diesel engines by that point, thats a tall order. We also need to upgrade our own intrastructure, costal, drainage, transport, all of it, to withstand more extreme and frequent weather.



We need to also look at large reforestation programs across the world, and also its imperative that the current and accelerating destruction of the rain-forests will have to be stopped completely. All these things need to happen on a global scale, in Europe, North America, China, India, Japan, and the rest of the world. This is obviously a very tall order as we are talking about fundamental change across the world, and its not going to be easy, but it can be done. But if governments don't start to act immeadiately we will run out of time, as these changes are going to take 20-30 years so we can't wait any longer. That's like asking a man to give up his comfortable shoes (or his skivvies;)) for new ones. It ain't gonna happen just because you say it needs to happen.



No typical person is going to change just because someone is yelling that the sky is (literally) falling. He will just look up, see the beautiful sunshine, and go on with life. No, hysterics is definitely not the way to initiate change.



Think money. Turning the thermostat down in winter and up in summer saves money. Buying the more expensive bulbs last longer and saves money. Putting in solar panels reduces reliance on the power company and saves money. See? Get an electric car that can travel 80 miles per hour for several hundred miles per charge, that can recharge in the time it takes to fill a gasoline tank, and you'll save the world.



I think I posted before that it's irrelevant, imo, whether humanity is to blame for global warming. If there is something we can do to slow the process -- especially if it's painless and money-saving -- then it's worth doing.

People need to be smarter as well, for example, there have been many housing developments in the last 25 years where houses are being built in designated flooding zones, then when they actually flood people are surprised (!!!) and are freaked out. Houses should not be built in floods zones to begin with.

If you have a house near a damn, and your house is lower than the water in the damn, it should not be a real surprise that you are living in a high risk area.

It is like buying a house on a fault line in California or something, then surprised when the house falls down after an earthquake, or buying a house near an airport, then complaining about the noise.

If sea levels are going to rise, then why are sea front properties still the most desirable and highest price? Galbally, time to buy in the Dublin or Wicklow Mountains.

My daughter was taught about global warming in school and came home crying as she thought the world is going to end. I told her that we all have a responsibility to protect our environment and do what is right, but the world is not going to end, it may change, but it won’t be the first time it changed either, and people will do what they have done for millions of years, adapt.

Accountable;723602 wrote: That's like asking a man to give up his comfortable shoes (or his skivvies;)) for new ones. It ain't gonna happen just because you say it needs to happen.



No typical person is going to change just because someone is yelling that the sky is (literally) falling. He will just look up, see the beautiful sunshine, and go on with life. No, hysterics is definitely not the way to initiate change.



Think money. Turning the thermostat down in winter and up in summer saves money. Buying the more expensive bulbs last longer and saves money. Putting in solar panels reduces reliance on the power company and saves money. See? Get an electric car that can travel 80 miles per hour for several hundred miles per charge, that can recharge in the time it takes to fill a gasoline tank, and you'll save the world.



I think I posted before that it's irrelevant, imo, whether humanity is to blame for global warming. If there is something we can do to slow the process -- especially if it's painless and money-saving -- then it's worth doing.


I think you are right about how to motivate people to change, savings from efficiency should be rewarded while inefficiency in industry and at home should incur penalties, I guess we are heading toward some form of carbon taxation system as well as perhaps this carbon trading market. I think that as well the problems with oil in particular as well as gas supplies (i.e. supply insecurity, cost, geopolitical situations) mean that there is an impetus outside of the climate arguement alone that is motivating governments everywhere to look for alternatives to fossil fuels, though the idea of returning to buring coal and sequestering the carbon dioxide it emits is being touted now as a medium term solution and perhaps it is.

I also agree about the hysterics thing, I personally just got a bit freaked out at the seminar because the situation is so serious, and when you see it laid out for you by one of the guys who has just written the UN report the reality of it hits you a lot harder than just reading a leader in a newspaper, but then life is an inherently risky business so what can you do, its not like any of us will be around in 2100, (though if I could make it to 2050 it might be nice!), but no one wants to wreck the planet as our children and grandchildren will suffer in the long run, I just think that a lot of time has been wasted (Kyoto was 10 years ago) by prevaricating politicans who have acted in an unforgiveably irresponsible manner on this issue, and to be frank its the American politicans in particular who can take most credit for the fact that so little has been done on this globally to this point (both the Clinton and Bush administrations records on this are abysmal). Still, that said this isn't just an American or European problem, its a global problem and only broad agreement between all the major industrial and developing nations will be effective.

I am not that optimistic that enough change is going to happen quickly enough to prevent serious warming and pretty severe climatic impacts in the 21st century to be honest, (which is why governemnts need to think pretty quickly about contingency plans) though I think we may do just enough in mitigation and also in the reduction of emissions that we won't hopefully go down the route of complete catastrophe. It will be interesting to see what happens at the Bali conference, though I won't be holding my breath.

mikeinie;723604 wrote: People need to be smarter as well, for example, there have been many housing developments in the last 25 years where houses are being built in designated flooding zones, then when they actually flood people are surprised (!!!) and are freaked out. Houses should not be built in floods zones to begin with.

If you have a house near a damn, and your house is lower than the water in the damn, it should not be a real surprise that you are living in a high risk area.

It is like buying a house on a fault line in California or something, then surprised when the house falls down after an earthquake, or buying a house near an airport, then complaining about the noise.

If sea levels are going to rise, then why are sea front properties still the most desirable and highest price? Galbally, time to buy in the Dublin or Wicklow Mountains.

My daughter was taught about global warming in school and came home crying as she thought the world is going to end. I told her that we all have a responsibility to protect our environment and do what is right, but the world is not going to end, it may change, but it won’t be the first time it changed either, and people will do what they have done for millions of years, adapt.


No the world isn't going to end and its important to temper the urgency of the situation where we are now (in which governments simply have to start actually doing something as opposed to talking about it and basically fobbing the issue off), with a rational and sober kinda attitude about it. Like I said to accountable it was just alarming to listen to the lecture as it made it more real, so I suppose I was a bit like your daughter last night, a bit scared by it, but life is risky anyway init, so you can't get too wrapped up in these very large scale issues emotionally as you lose perspective.

I do actually think that people with sea-front properties are going to have difficulties especially if they are low-lying, as they will find these areas less desirable as the decades come, but then living by the sea is also desirable for lots of other reasons as well, and of course living on the posh hill is always the ideal so maybe the people in Dalky and Kilinney won't be so badly off. What I do thing is urgent is that our own government starts planning infrastruture upgrades and also costal defence systems for our coastal cities Dublin, Cork, Galway etc etc, as these places will be vunerable, and particularly Dublin considering a third of the population of the country live in the flood basin of the liffey basically. (though there are patches of higher ground throughout the city of course, but we wouldn't want them turning into islands in a swamp, so some tidal barrier system for the Liffey like perhaps the London one, and better sea-wall protection will be needed.

Our major problem is planning, considering how badly planning has been managed in the past couple of decades, we need to get much more on the ball.

Jester;726248 wrote: Ok Gall, first off I’m not a scientist, but I can read pretty good and have thought this through and I have to take a few exceptions that cause grave doubt in my mind if this is as real of a problem as you say, and by you, I don’t necessarily mean YOU per say, but the scientific community at large.

Lets just say I’m an extreme skeptic.



Let me qualify this by saying I’m all for being responsible stewards of our natural world and natural resources.

When I first read your post above you struck me as though you had just come back from a religious revival meeting and zealous to raise the alarm of eminent danger, and I lifted my head to look where you were pointing, and I see nothing of the like.



I’ve seen this before, I’ve heard the scientific community sound off on many occasions: world famine, the returning ice age, heating of world oceans from coastal nuclear power plants, expanding ozone holes, the junk science on DDT, cold war doomsday predications, cell phones causing brain tumors, toxic affects of ground based oil spill, and I walk out to my truck and drive on an asphalt oils spill every day, its called a freeway. I don’t’ want to hear about the danger of bay oil spills washing up on beaches since there are natural enzymes in the sand that breaks down the oil, yet the government lets the ‘environmentalists’ use industrial hot steam pressure cleaners that kills away every natural component away that the spill didn’t destroy.



I wish you hadn’t have said the ‘debate was over’, the debate should never be over, science, and I mean good science should keep on and we should approach the evidence you learned about with caution and intelligence and keep the decision making process out of the hands of the environmentalist whacko’s that would throw good money after bad science.



I have other ‘issues’ regarding this subject, in part because I don’t trust the hippies from the 70’s making decisions for me in the new millennium and in part because I don’t trust the green political parties and their lying agendas, who will use anything they can get their hands on to socially control the common person while they take a ride on government business in the very same planes, trains, and automobiles, that they say I can’t ride in. (thank you All Gore)

If you would, give me just one link, of one verifyable out of nature occurance that is a direct result of man, or mankind, and if you would rate it on a scale from 1-10, 1 being of no consequence to deal with NOW, and 10 being the importance level that if we don't stop it now we will not exist next year?

Please keep in mind I'm a layperson of science and it will take me some time to analyze what you say but Im willing to lay myself open to seriously considering changing my stance on this issue.

Jester (Far)


Sure, I think that you raise some interesting points. Firstly I think perhaps my surprise at how worrying the figures are on CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and some of the implications of the findings alarmed me, and that may have made my first post a bit emotionally involved. But I assure you that the lecture was certainly not in any way similar to a religious revivalist meeting, though it would be fair to say that most of scientific people would be of a similar opinion who were there. But also in attendence were politicans, economists, farmers leaders, the environmental activist lobby, and the general public. I didn't hear any of the more lunatic fringe make any of the more silly points at the end where questions were fielded.

The reason I said the debate is over in terms of the specific question as to whether human activity is causing atmospheric CO2 levels to increase and that as a consequence of this is that more solar energy is being absorbed by the atmosphere and this is causing the planet to warm up, is because in essence that question has been answered conclusively and the answer is yes. Of course it is possible that all of the data is wrong, and that all of the scientists across the world studying this phenomena have gotten it completely wrong, but what is the likelihood of that? Very low to be honest, as the burden of evidence is overwhelming, and also the principals of how this could happen are based on basic physics and chemistry, its not actually that complicated. What is difficult is making 100 percent specific conclusions from climate data as obviously the climate is extremely complex in its entireity. Which is why the evidence has been collected so exhaustively as we need to be sure on this one.

If you want to assess the evidence go to http://www.ipcc.ch/ >, and there you can get online versions of the various reports and links to other scientific organizations that are involved in this issue.

I think also that its quite interesting that you basically represent all the scientist globally who are engaged in studying this phenomenon as a bunch of relics from the 1970s hippie movement, and I think you should think about how that ridiculous prejudice is clouding how you might interpret the conclusions that are being reached based on the evidence available. The image of scientists as either German Professors, or Californian hippies is based on various TV shows, but I assure you it is not the reality as most of the scientists that I know are neither. For instance, I am Irish, I am cerrtainly no hippie, and you could probably describe my political views as fairly conservative, my motivation for working in this field is more due to the fact that I think its a hugely important scientific issue, and a very interesting field of research, not based on any notion's of hugging trees or communing with nature.

I do think you make a good point in that we are constantly bombarded with various doomsday scenarios, and have been since the time of Malthus, in fact the Global Warming issue was first noted by the Swedish Scientist Arrhenius, and in the 1970s as well, it was again realized that this was a potential problem. But the thing is sometimes these problems turn out to be real, such as CFC depletion of the ozone layer, or say the link between cigarette smoking and cancer, and unfortunatly climate change falls into the latter catagory, as it is real, in fact its already happening, and human industrial activity is directly responsible for it. That fact poses a huge challenege to us all, I agree that good science involves always being open to different interpretations, the problem is that many people in the political class have very little respect for scientific arguments that lead to conclusions that are disagreeable, and use the fact that scientists don't like to ever say an issue is closed, to basically completely misrepresent the argument.

mikeinie;723604 wrote: People need to be smarter as well, for example, there have been many housing developments in the last 25 years where houses are being built in designated flooding zones, then when they actually flood people are surprised (!!!) and are freaked out. Houses should not be built in floods zones to begin with.

If you have a house near a damn, and your house is lower than the water in the damn, it should not be a real surprise that you are living in a high risk area.

It is like buying a house on a fault line in California or something, then surprised when the house falls down after an earthquake, or buying a house near an airport, then complaining about the noise.

If sea levels are going to rise, then why are sea front properties still the most desirable and highest price? Galbally, time to buy in the Dublin or Wicklow Mountains.

My daughter was taught about global warming in school and came home crying as she thought the world is going to end. I told her that we all have a responsibility to protect our environment and do what is right, but the world is not going to end, it may change, but it won’t be the first time it changed either, and people will do what they have done for millions of years, adapt.


That was a meaningfull post to me, Mikeinie. I agree with most all you said. I would like to add that I think it's the realtors, investors and such, who entice less educated, less money equipped beings to buy those kinds of properties you mentioned.

Now, the California properties that people can afford to buy, the ones on faults and stuff, there's no excuse for those people (where did their values go for gawds sake?) :guitarist.

Erin

I'm not sure about nuclear energy only because of the waste. Where to put it, and who knows what consequences it will have.

There's so much waste in the world, a possible byproduct of human greed, consumption, low self-esteem and there are people with an utter disregard for anything that doesn't directly affect them, Jester, that no matter what evidence you're looking for regarding climate change, the world is in a shitty condition and going downhill fast.

I will never ever need to rely on scientific data to convince me that people aren't trashing our earth!

So be it,

Erin

Jester;727045 wrote: I'll work on the link, thanks for that. I did not mean to infer the scientists were the hippies, I meant the environmentalist folks were, and they have a heavy handed political movement and they are using the junk science the most.

Can I ask you some simple questions?

How is this global mean tempurature been collected, what data do they use and how is it calculated?

Has it been calculated the same for pervious years and how far back have they been calculating it?

How are they measuring the Co2 levels and for how long have they been measuring?

Has the O2 level decreased as a result of too much Co2?




Well I certainly won't deny that there are people for whom the environment has become akin to a religion almost, but again not all environmental activists are just ideological anti-industrial people (though again some are), but just feel that protecting the environment and creating a more sustainable civilization is a noble kinda cause. To my mind, the very specific problem of CO2 emissions and climate change is not a quetsion of ethics or morality, but simple self-preservation, and if we can manage to change our energy systems with the minimal impact on economic development then thats fantastic, but the longer we leave it, the harder that gets.

To answer your specific questions about how the the science involved the global mean temperature is based on atmosphere, soil, and ocean tempreature measurements that are made across the world by metorogical services, scientific groups, military, airforces, naval services, and also by oceanographic surveys. Since the 1970s sattelite's have been able to measure surface temperatures on land and sea, and in the air, so all of these data sources are collated and analyzed. There are effetcs that have to be taken into consideration, such as the albedo effect, and also the ability for different terrain types to absorb more heat from the sun's radiation, and also warmth is generated in heavily populated industrial zones, such as the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., Western Europe, S.E. Asia ect. Also of course you have to factor in the sensitivity of your instuments and methods as well as reliability and accuracy, all of that information would be included in error bars, (which are a statisitcal way of telling how confident you can be in your results). Obviously there is an enormous amount of data generated in any one year, so their they used specific procedures to ensure that when caculating the gobal temperature they are using the best data available from the most reliable sources, and most importantly of all to ensure that the data is truly representative of the global temperature as of course no two regions of the planet are the same temperature at any given moment in time, so you are creating a summary. The data obviously can be broken down into region, sea, land, air, hemisphere, etc so that you can interpert the tempreature for any given large region, the smaller the region of course the less reliable any mean figure is as the variability observed increases as the size of the area you are studying decreases, but on a planetary scale the results are very consistent as its such a large area that you are measuring in total.

The middle questions need specific answers as they are both critical in assessing trends, so I will get back to you on those ones.

The last one, no you don't need to worry (thank god!) about oxygen depletion from the atmosphere due to CO2 emission (except maybe in the extremely long term), as the atmosphere contains 21 percent oxygen, and we are only talking about several hundred parts per billion concentrations of CO2, its a very tiny component of the atmosphere, but it does have a large effect in terms of the greenhouse effect, but there is absolutley no need to worry about oxygen content of the atmosphere as there is many millions times more the mass of oxygen in the atmosphere than there is CO2, and for that to change significantly it would take natural or man-made events so cataclysmic that there is no point worrying about them as we all be long dead before we noticed anything.

OK, being a scientific idiot, I did read a book once that explained it pretty well. First, this could be a shift that the earth has experienced before and is going through its natural cycle again.

Second, I think this graph pretty much explains it all. Note the years the heat rallies and then falters. Notice anything? WWII, Vietnam War and all the Gulf

Wars. The heat rises during those years and then ebbs off during the non-war years. There was a graph that actually showed the heat higher before the industrial age than during it. Stop the wars---------stop the temperature. At least a little. I'm not saying the wars are to blame for it all but neither are vehicles. I believe deforestation does have something to do with it, we must have trees!

It's so easy to blame the little people for their use of something that keeps all countries on its feet. While the Big people continue as if nothing is going on. Presidents continue to go on their jaunts in larger than life airplanes, John Travolta continues to flies his planes, movie stars continue to suck gas in their Hummers and fast cars and ride in limos to parties. The rest of us are asked to ride our bikes or ride in smoke belching buses to work. I want to see Jack Nickolson trim down his estate so he doesn't use so much electricity. Do you think the Queen is actually sitting around in her flannel pj's and wooly slippers with the thermostat sitting at 68 degrees in that dungeon of a palace she lives in??

If I have to change, so do they. Reckon how Al Gore got around to all his appointments while screaming that we were using too much energy? Peace prize indeed!!:-5

911;727388 wrote: OK, being a scientific idiot, I did read a book once that explained it pretty well. First, this could be a shift that the earth has experienced before and is going through its natural cycle again.

Second, I think this graph pretty much explains it all. Note the years the heat rallies and then falters. Notice anything? WWII, Vietnam War and all the Gulf

Wars. The heat rises during those years and then ebbs off during the non-war years. There was a graph that actually showed the heat higher before the industrial age than during it. Stop the wars---------stop the temperature. At least a little. I'm not saying the wars are to blame for it all but neither are vehicles. I believe deforestation does have something to do with it, we must have trees!

It's so easy to blame the little people for their use of something that keeps all countries on its feet. While the Big people continue as if nothing is going on. Presidents continue to go on their jaunts in larger than life airplanes, John Travolta continues to flies his planes, movie stars continue to suck gas in their Hummers and fast cars and ride in limos to parties. The rest of us are asked to ride our bikes or ride in smoke belching buses to work. I want to see Jack Nickolson trim down his estate so he doesn't use so much electricity. Do you think the Queen is actually sitting around in her flannel pj's and wooly slippers with the thermostat sitting at 68 degrees in that dungeon of a palace she lives in??

If I have to change, so do they. Reckon how Al Gore got around to all his appointments while screaming that we were using too much energy? Peace prize indeed!!:-5






I don't know where the book you've seen got its data but it matches none of the scientific papers I've seen in the reputable journals.

Perhaps you could post a link?

i have read alot onthis..i am not sure on my facts...exactly..so overlook me spot..but i have read that sealions..that normally are in the north pole are migrating to alaska now..that the sea is slowly rising a few inches..that our coastal cities are going to be in more trouble...esp..during hurricanes..the western side of the united states is predicted to become more desert..it is growing every year...the magnetic northpole is drifing faster and faster every year..you can look this up...i wonder what the impact of the earth will be..just from this..no matter how much we ignore this fact.the ecology or the earth is dramatically changing..and we as humans are going to be affected..i am not so sure i totally blame it on green house gases or a natural changing of the earth..as it has done for millions of years...we may have speeded the changes up..but they are a happening naturally anyway...polar bears are in danger..the ice sheets they depend on are disappearing..

The whole problem began back in the day when earth started supporting organic life. Noone saw it coming until environmentalists got the clue and decided to pass on the word-- 'what do you expect??

Life creates waste and now we are populating the earth (thanks also to China[/SIZE] for this and Indonesia and of course flippin western Europe and friggin US) at exponential rates. Who could even question the outcome when demand exceeds ability to supply? I mean who really needs any evidence that human consumption will far exceed the earth's natural cleansing abilty? I mean the ability for earth to sustain itself? I t doesn't matter what the numbers read. It's common sense really. We have limited resources on our planet. We have loads of consummative entities that will eventually grow more than this world can provide, unless we change our ways of thinking.

Just my 2 cents.

People are pretty dumb all in all :rolleyes:

Erin

Jester;727674 wrote: I'm not convinced yet.

But I'm going on the assumption that the climate is changing naturally before us and Co2 gasses will have little effect on the climate but everyone will blame it on the gasses.

Ten years form now if ther eis a notable rapid rise in the same data colllection systems they use now, (thats if they dont change how the collect it) I might be more inclined to believe it.

Never the less I will keep studying it till I'm convinced other wise or I have clear evidence to slap the greenie-weeneis and junk scientists in the face with it. I do belive we shoudl be wise stewards of what we've been given, so any and all steps to better the environment I'm willing to do. but Good lord don't demand it of me or I'll sit back and drag my feet just as hard as I can.



Very immature I know but, thats how I feel right now.


Heehee that's very mature of you to recognize your immaturity. Most of the time I believe that's the sentiment of most everyone, "egad, don't make me do it!". Thing is most people wouldn't make themselves do much of anything if left to our own devices, imho. People are egocentrists. I love that description. I learned it back when I was a 20 year old college student struggling to make sense of academics. It was a term that stood out for me above all the lame concepts I was hearing at the time .

Erin

Bryn Mawr;727427 wrote: I don't know where the book you've seen got its data but it matches none of the scientific papers I've seen in the reputable journals.

Perhaps you could post a link?


Something happened to my graph. Perhaps it blew the margins or something. I'll get back to that later. :-3

Galbally;723608 wrote: ... though the idea of returning to buring coal and sequestering the carbon dioxide it emits is being touted now as a medium term solution and perhaps it is.


I'm of the opinion that this is a pipe dream. To my knowledge the technology doesn't exist, and if it did it would be bloody dangerous.

And I suggest that reforestation is a temporary solution. A good forest fire will return your years of sequestration to the atmosphere.

I am of the belief that the only thing to do is to stop using fossil fuels. And this can't be left to philanthropy. Tax them till they hurt, and then tax them some more. If you're raising too much revenue, eliminate income tax and VAT, and then tax fossil fuel use some more.

If a tank of petrol costed a grand, a market for those hydrogen cars by Honda or battery electric vehicles would open up within a year. If it cost a hundred grand, the market would open up within a month.

And the grid has to be clean. That means geothermal, wind and nuclear. Or those tidal generators some people have. Maybe hydro if you're not flooding any flora.

Bored_Wombat;733457 wrote: I'm of the opinion that this is a pipe dream. To my knowledge the technology doesn't exist, and if it did it would be bloody dangerous.

And I suggest that reforestation is a temporary solution. A good forest fire will return your years of sequestration to the atmosphere.

I am of the belief that the only thing to do is to stop using fossil fuels. And this can't be left to philanthropy. Tax them till they hurt, and then tax them some more. If you're raising too much revenue, eliminate income tax and VAT, and then tax fossil fuel use some more.

If a tank of petrol costed a grand, a market for those hydrogen cars by Honda or battery electric vehicles would open up within a year. If it cost a hundred grand, the market would open up within a month.

And the grid has to be clean. That means geothermal, wind and nuclear. Or those tidal generators some people have. Maybe hydro if you're not flooding any flora.


I think that indeed there does have to be a massive turnaround on our attitude to the use of gas, oil and coal as fuels that can be burned at will with the emissions going into our atmoshpere. I did see that Honda have just released the world's first Hydrogen powered road Vehicle, it has a fuel cell-powered electric engine that can produce 100 kW of power (and if anyone is wondering that is a lot of power and its very impressive). The problem is at the moment of course that its very difficult to store hydrogen, and of course the power needed to split the water to make hydrogen has to come from some sustainable energy source or then you are just moving the emissions back down the economic chain. But still, its a good start. Ford and Mercedes have also done a lot of work on fuel cell vehicles and I am expecting that they will also both be releasing new models soon. The Bali Conference is underway and what happens there is going to be crucial to what happens next with getting emissions down drastcially over the next 20 years.

Jester;727045 wrote: Can I ask you some simple questions?

...

Has it been calculated the same for previous years and how far back have they been calculating it?

How are they measuring the Co2 levels and for how long have they been measuring?

Has the O2 level decreased as a result of too much Co2?


I'm not in the field but I think that I can add to Galbally's better informed answers, by pointing to a few links that I have collected by getting into slinging matches about global warming on the web.

Re: How far back have temperature reconstructions gone?

Well, all the way. However, the further back you go the fewer data are available from which temperature can be inferred, and the less environmental information that exists surrounding your data. This creates two sources of error, the first that what you think is temperature related might be interfered with by unknown effects. (For instance tree ring data can be used to infer climatic information ... but a poor year might not be simply cold). As the paucity of data increases, it becomes more difficult to differentiate local climatic effects from global ones.

That said Global Warming Art has a good array of different temperature records and different temperature reconstructions over wildly different time scales on this page.

Re: How are they measuring the Co2 levels and for how long have they been measuring?

CO2 is measured at these sites:



(The map is a hyperlink to the source)




Mauna Loa in Hawaii is the longest running, and has been collecting data since 1957. A previous record can be extracted by analysing the CO2 content of air bubbles in ice cores, and there is good correlation with this technique and measurements back to 1957. Some people think that there is some bleeding of air over a very long time, (Ice cores go back the better part of a million years), and there maybe some years between when snow falls, and when the voids become airtight in some cases. So you get some blurring and some inaccuracy in the time. However it is probably pretty good for large scale analysis. Results look a bit like this:



(Again the graph is a hyperlink to the source, which is Global Warming art.)




re: Has the O2 level decreased as a result of too much Co2?

Galbally is right, the decrease is of a much lower order of magnitude than the oxygen concentration of the atmosphere, but it is measurable, and this is significant for some things. It is one of the fundamental ways that it is known that the CO2 increase is caused by the combustion of something, and not, for instance from the warming of the oceans decreasing the solubility of CO2.

There is a little discussion of such things in this Physics Today letter.

-Wombat

911;727388 wrote: First, this could be a shift that the earth has experienced before and is going through its natural cycle again.
No, it couldn't.

This level of greenhouse gasses is unprecedented for some millions of years. This is not cyclic.

If I have to change, so do they. Reckon how Al Gore got around to all his appointments while screaming that we were using too much energy?He's got a message to tell, and he's flying around to tell it. The question is, did you get the message?

Peace prize indeed!!Well, if global warming reduces food production enough to bring it below consumption, there will be food wars. Every single time in history that a group of people are given the choice between starving and fighting, they have chosen fighting.

Jester;727674 wrote: But I'm going on the assumption that the climate is changing naturally before us and Co2 gasses will have little effect on the climate but everyone will blame it on the gasses.
You don't believe in the greenhouse effect?

Another interesting little titbit, the IPCC Report doesn't get into possible impacts of "Feedback Mechanisms" causing an acceleration in the already observable trends. Now what these feedback things are are certain natural events that could be triggered by the planet warming that would release more CO2 or CH4 (methane) into the atmosphere, and then of course that would cause further warming, which would increase the amount of CO2 or CH4 going into the atmosphere and you get a feedback loop.

Now there is one such feedback loop that is quite worrying and its got to do with Siberia (there was actually a piece about it on TV the other night), in that the much of the ground in Siberia is permafrost, which means it remains frozen (underground all year long). However, Siberia is already experiencing very rapid warming as some areas of the earth are warming faster than others, with artic regions in particular already witnessing significant warming (with about a 3 degree celcius rise over the last 10 years, which is an enormous change and that rate is accelerating). Which is why the NorthWest Passage, and the Greenland Ice Shelf are all thawing out right now.

Now up in Siberia there is estimated to be trillions of tones of methane gas trapped in rotten vegetation that has frozen at the bottom of lakes etc, but as the ground is thawing out, this methane may be released into the atmospere and as methane is about 25 times more efficient as a greenhouse gas than CO2, if all of the projected methane eventually ends up in the atmosphere we could end up with a runaway feedback loop that we will be unable to stop no matter what we do in terms of chaning our own emissions. This is just one such feedback loop that could kick in, and there are several. If even just one of these feedback mechanisms get going, then we really are in very, very serious trouble.

Galbally;733486 wrote: The problem is at the moment of course that its very difficult to store hydrogen, and of course the power needed to split the water to make hydrogen has to come from some sustainable energy source or then you are just moving the emissions back down the economic chain.


Yes. Each national power grid must be clean, because whether you use Battery electric vehicles (or these new-fangled super-capacitors), or fuel cells, or compressed air, the power is now going to come from the grid. (Assuming we get to the point of taxing fossil fuel use out of existence.)

And, alas, that probably means Nuclear. God help Japan with their 130 million people, their lack of land, and their geological instability.

The Bali Conference is underway and what happens there is going to be crucial to what happens next with getting emissions down drastically over the next 20 years.Yes, and Australia's lovely shiny new prime minister had just enough time to ratify Kyoto before showing up. (Go Kevin!)

I have to say, I would be flabbergasted and amazed if an international agreement sufficiently broad and encompassing to make a blind bit of difference comes out of Bali. I just don't feel an international will.

Bloody Exxonmobil and their cheap and dirty but effective "doubt the science" campaign of the last 20 years. They've probably killed a billion people and half the world's biodiversity.

Galbally;733505 wrote: Another interesting little titbit, the IPCC Report doesn't get into possible impacts of "Feedback Mechanisms" causing an acceleration in the already observable trends.


The loss of the summer ice in the north sea is well underway too. That feeds back nice and positive because of the much greater albedo of ice than sea. But the loss of ice has will have a very significant effect on the climate as well. It's one of those systems that a small change in temperature will tip to a new state and have a dramatic (and dangerous) effect of climate.

Nature magazine's newish "Nature reports climate change" pages has a write up about such "tipping points" here.

(Actually if you need something to listen to on the train they've started a monthly Nature Reports climate change podcast.) - Non technical, but informative in a broad sort of way.

Jester;727674 wrote: INever the less I will keep studying it till I'm convinced other wise or I have clear evidence to slap the greenie-weeneis and junk scientists in the face with it.
May I try a slightly different tack and go slightly into what we actually all agree about?

There are two entirely distinct phrases that crop up in this thread, greenhouse gas and global warming.

A greenhouse gas is one which has two properties. Firstly it's transparent to light which is hot, it comes from outside the planet and nearly all of it hits the surface or clouds. Some's reflected, some's absorbed and warms up the surface. Secondly it's not transparent to low-heat radiation called infra-red, which is what the warmed surfaces give off. The infra-red moves a small distance out and gets re-absorbed. It's trapped near the surface by the greenhouse gas. It's called a greenhouse gas because greenhouses work the same way, light gets through the windows into the greenhouse and warms the contents but the heat can't escape as easily as the heat gets in. Galbally, you mistyped the concentration of carbon dioxide, it's 375 parts per million in the atmosphere not per billion, I just had to fit that in at some point.

Right, what's actually in the atmosphere? Nitrogen(78%) oxygen(21%) and argon(1%) mainly, none of which are a greenhouse gas because all are transparent to hot light and to infra-red. They don't trap heat.

That leaves about 0.04% of other stuff. It's not much but it's what we're talking about. It's water, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and sulphur dioxide. Each of those absorbs infra-red given off by the surface and traps heat. Methane does it more effectively than carbon dioxide or water but there's far less of it up there.

How much water is in the atmosphere depends on the surface temperature - hotter evaporates more of the sea into the air, cooler brings down more rain. It comes to a balance quickly, it evaporates and precipitates in weeks.

How much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere depends on how much fuel we burn and how much plant life gets buried. It might also depend on how much gets dissolved into the sea, people have thought that was a constant take-up but maybe it isn't. Carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere stays there a long time - decades rather than weeks.

How much methane is in the atmosphere depends on how many cows we let loose since they fart a lot of it. I'm sure there are other sources but that's significant. There's also a lot of trapped methane in underwater and tundra deposits - enough that if they got into the atmosphere because the tundra melts or the sea-water 300 feet down warms we'd have a lot more methane in the air than we do now.

I hope we agree on everything there - that there's no "I don't believe in greenhouse gas" to contend with. Does anyone want to challenge that?

The thread's queried whether the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased since industrialization began. I hope we agree that it has. We burn fuels more, the air concentration of carbon dioxide goes up. We have fewer plants being buried, less gets taken out. Does anyone want to challenge that?

The disagreement is surely about whether the acknowledged rise in greenhouse gas concentrations is going to change the climate of the planet so significantly that people will suffer and die. That's the "global warming" part of the thread which we're disagreeing about.

There are simple components. One is that if you model a plain simple planet with a constant light input and an atmosphere of, say, just nitrogen oxygen and carbon dioxide, and you increase the proportion of carbon dioxide, the surface temperature rises in proportion to the concentration of carbon dioxide. You can call that a lab test if you like.

The complicated component is the water. In the air it can be either humidity or cloud. If it's cloud it reflects more hot light straight back out into space so the surface cools. If it's humidity the hot light gets to the surface. The water's also present as ice. The more of the surface that's iced the more hot light reflects straight back out into space and the surface cools. Does a hotter planet have less ice? Definitely it does. Does it have more cloud? Yes. Those two effects on surface temperature operate in different directions.

Are we still agreeing completely? Good.

So how can you predict whether the globe as a whole will get warmer if you increase the carbon dioxide concentration in the air? You can model it in more and more detail but the sceptics will doubt the model. You can measure the planet over time but sceptics will say there are other factors involved which explain the measurements - like the total hot light input varying over time, for example, as the sun changes. That's where the disagreement lies, not in any of the earlier paragraphs.

Beyond the question of whether it'll get warmer or not there's the final puzzle - is it a good thing or a bad thing. Some parts of the world will get more productive and some less so, though if you just keep warming indefinitely you end up with no area at all that's benefited.

The final aspect of global warming is the question of whether there's a runaway effect that might be triggered at some point. If it turned out, for example, that having no surface ice at all leads inexorably to the oceans boiling then we're well screwed because those ice areas are going to go one day. If on the other hand it all settles down to just leaving the areas north and south of the tropics habitable then maybe we can survive it even if coral reefs and elephants can't.

Chew on that and then beg me not to write on risk assessment next.

Bugger. That got longer than I expected and I hate making people uncomfortable.

Ooops, sorry bout the typo, honest mistake, I usually think in ppms or ppbs so my bad.

I think whats very, very important to remember is that the changes that we are already seeing in terms of CO2 levels, rapid average global temperature increases, summer ice sheet melt, and habitiat destruction are unprecendented in modern history and probably in human experience since the last ice age. That means that humans are going to experience a climate in the 21st century that is unlike any climate experienced during the whole of the last 10,000 years of civilization, and considering how many civilizations have come to an abrupt end because of environmental degredation, that should give us serious pause for thought. Now I know that at the same time, we just have to be practical and get one with it, whatever happens. But it does seem to me, that even the IPCC are kinda relying on this "best case scenario" picture of the future impacts, and more importantly our ability to deal with them, and that worries me, because in this life wishful thinking is usually a recipie for diaster, maybe climate scientists are just so demoralized by the sophistry being bandied about by people who really don't have a notion of what they are on about, and the utter lack of responsibility being show by major world governments, that they also are falling into the age old trap of believing what you like to believe.



I think that the idea that global warming rates as currently predicted are going to result in a sort of benign climate "reajustment" that we won't notice much or will just take a little bit of effort to overcome is very optimistic. Each one degree increase in climate we are measuring represents an enourmous amount of energy (measured in joules) being retained in the atmosphere, and this energy will have to play itself out of the system somehow. Think of the climate like a big heat engine, absorbing the heat radiation from the ground, which along with the sea is heated by radiation from the Sun, and then this heat energy warms the planet, is re-mitted back into space (so think of that like a release valve getting rid of a certain amount of the energy) or redistributed in the seas and the atmosphere as higher sea, land, and air temperature and more overall kinetic energy in the climatic system.

What's happening now is that the mechanism that allows a lot of the energy to escape is being changed by changing the CO2 and Methane levels so less can get out. So less of that energy is being re-emitted back into space and instead is ending up remaining in the climatic system, in both the oceans (which are able to absorb heat of course and are therefore also warming up significantly BTW, and when you heat water it expands, which is why sea level rises are now inevitable as well) and also in the atmosphere, where we most easily can see how it is converted into kinetic energy as winds, waves, or light, electricity and sound energy, (i.e. electrical storms). The heat energy also drives precipitation and the water cycle of the planet as (it requires heat energy to evaporate water into vapour) so more heat you get more clouds, more rain, and more storms, causing soil erosion, flash flooding, and more frequent and more violent storms forming etc etc. In short the more energy you force the atmosphere to absorb, then the more of all of these things you are inevitably going to have, as well as an increased temperature with melting ice caps, ice sheets, permafrost regions and glaciers.

There has been a 0.8 degree rise already since 1900, and thats a lot and it has already had a significant impact on our climate, as this rate becomes higher the impacts will become more fierce at an accelerating rate, as the relationship between mean temperatures and the climate is not a simple straight line one, so once we get up to that 2 degrees warmer mark we are really talking about serious climate shifts and very large impacts on human activity such as agriculture, irrigation, deserificiation, deforestation, sea level rises, and increased extreme weather events. We will certainly have mass extinctions of flora (plants, and espeically ones that are ecoloigcally sensitive, we are expecting to lose at least one fifth of all native Irish speicies by 2050 for example) as well as Fauna (or Animals, again the ones already vunerable are the ones at most risk). I don't really think that people are fully taking on board what the implications are of all this, in a world that has 6.5 billion people, with most being dirt poor and living in low-lying coastal plains, surviving on subsitence farming, dependent on rivers fed by glacial melt waters. Add to that the geopolitical situation we have in the world, and the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Its a pretty grim situation if you ask me.

Galbally;733486 wrote: I think that indeed there does have to be a massive turnaround on our attitude to the use of gas, oil and coal as fuels that can be burned at will with the emissions going into our atmoshpere. I did see that Honda have just released the world's first Hydrogen powered road Vehicle, it has a fuel cell-powered electric engine that can produce 100 kW of power (and if anyone is wondering that is a lot of power and its very impressive). The problem is at the moment of course that its very difficult to store hydrogen, and of course the power needed to split the water to make hydrogen has to come from some sustainable energy source or then you are just moving the emissions back down the economic chain. But still, its a good start. Ford and Mercedes have also done a lot of work on fuel cell vehicles and I am expecting that they will also both be releasing new models soon. The Bali Conference is underway and what happens there is going to be crucial to what happens next with getting emissions down drastcially over the next 20 years.


I believe that someone is developing a fuel cell that generates its own hydrogen by cracking water as it goes using, I think, some form of aluminium catalyst - I'll try to look out the reference.

Bryn Mawr;733817 wrote: I believe that someone is developing a fuel cell that generates its own hydrogen by cracking water as it goes using, I think, some form of aluminium catalyst - I'll try to look out the reference.


Hmmn, interesting, I was actually looking at some of the fuel-cells they are investigating, its not a side of Chemistry that I know a lot about, as it wasn't really big news even 10 years ago, but its a big area of R&D now of course. Some of these research-stage exoctic bad boys have power outputs of 10 Mega Watts, now thats a hella of a lot of watts, so I presume these are not ones that are being designed for use in cars, because a car with a power output of 10 mega watts would actually put out 7,500hp (in terms of conventional power ratings) and that would make it as powerful as a jet fighter, cars that could go a 1,500 miles an hour would be impractical I think. Fun though, who said going green might not also be a lot of fun.

If they could crack that design you are talking about then it would be amazing, as you wouldn't have all the problems with hydrogen storage, transport, production, ect that we have at the moment. But hydrogen will definetly be the Carbon of the future. I still think at present that in terms of overall energy generation a mix of renewables, bio-energy, and nuclear is the only really technologically feasible medium term answer, but over the longer term there are certainly new technologies coming along down the line.

In terms of cars, I think you can be sure that hybrids, the use of bio-diesels and bio-ethanol, as well as these newer fuel cell cars will take over the market in the next 15 years. Actually just today in the Irish Budget the government have brought in a new system of taxing new cars that means from June 08 they will be taxed based on CO2 emissions, so cars with zero emissions will not be taxed at all, while the cars with large CO2 emissions will become extremely expensive. Thats a good start I think, as it will focus the market onto CO2 emissions and away from heavily polluting inefficient status cars.

Galbally;733847 wrote:

If they could crack that design you are talking about then it would be amazing, as you wouldn't have all the problems with hydrogen storage, transport, production, ect that we have at the moment. But hydrogen will definetly be the Carbon of the future. I still think at present that in terms of overall energy generation a mix of renewables, bio-energy, and nuclear is the only really technologically feasible medium term answer, but over the longer term there are certainly new technologies coming along down the line.




Try :-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 163146.htm

Bryn Mawr;733817 wrote: I believe that someone is developing a fuel cell that generates its own hydrogen by cracking water as it goes using, I think, some form of aluminium catalyst - I'll try to look out the reference.
The cool thing about carting around the H is that there is your energy right there. If you're only carting around water, you're going to need a battery or capacitor or something, and you're sort of back to square one.

- Oh cool. You're carting around aluminium as a fuel. That's cuddly.

You might be able to get away with less nuclear power by putting in enough wind and tide generators to meet peak demand, and then smelter aluminium with the off-peak excess.

who cares? we only care about money:-6

SuperPowerChina;733903 wrote: who cares? we only care about money:-6


Yeah, but you can't eat money, trust me on that one. :-6