Global Warming

[apathy maybe]

While capitalists in Australia, the USA and other places enjoy making lots of money of the poor sods in the poorer nations they also enjoy wreaking the planet for the rest of us.
One of the ways they are wreaking the planet is by putting out lots of green house gases. These gases (such as carbon dioxide) are natural in small amounts, and in fact necessary for human existence. What theses gases do is prevent heat waves bouncing of the earth's surface from radiating back out into space. This fine and dandy we like to live on a warmish planet. The problem is that with too many of these gases too much heat gets trapped and places like Tasmania start getting to 25 degrees in the winter. It does more then that though, it also melts the ice caps and increases the volume of the oceans (by expanding it) so the sea level rises. All this temperature change also stuffs up global weather patterns so that some places flood and others are in drought when it should be the other way around.
And get this, apparently with the ocean getting warmer and the gulf steam stuffing up we could be in for another ice age! (It's true! As contradictory as it may sound.)

What can we do about this then? Well we could over though all capitalists everywhere and implement a socialist society. But we can also get those greedy capitalists to go and make money by helping to fix it up. One way to slow down the process is for everyone to buy a solar hot water system, this marvellous devise heats up your water using just the Sun! And once you have the system it is completely free (and you save money on electricity). Another way is to get solar panels and or wind generators. But at a national or corporate level we need to invest more in cheap fuel cell cars. These produce just water (as a gas) as a by product. Sounds good. We also should get all those jet planes to fly a lower height. Do you know how much fuel they could save if they did? A hella of a lot. We need to move away from our hydrocarbon burning economy. We will have to do it eventually, better sooner I say. But while we must burn things we can burn cleaner fuels like biomass. This can be produced from a wide variety of plants (hemp is good).

But that is my say, what do you think? (I don't want posts about how global warming is not happening, it is!)

[Danton]

Does'nt ice just displace the water anyway? how can the volume be increased? I'm just asking cause I've never understood this, it's like if you put an ice cube in a glass of water - when it melts there is no expansion as it was displacing the water beforehand no? Science was never my strong point.


Anyway...yes..... I agree global warming is definatley happening even in my lifetime I've noticed a change especially in England - i'ts roasting, wednesday was the hottest recorded day ever in London....

[F_Hayek]

The fact that it is happening, doesn't mean that we (as in the population) can be blaimed. Scientists are unsure what the cause is and don't even understand the climate themselves. Check the IPCC reports and look for the word uncertain.

The only way to reduce carbon dyoxide levels is to use nuclear energy, or decrease our standard of living drastically. But then we still don't know whether it makes any difference.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Actually the volume of ice is even bigger then the volume of water. So infact the volume increases, but the advantage of ice is; that it's solid. So the water gets packed vertical, saving a lot space. Same principle as skyscrapers. And abrakadabra the waterlevel stays low and the land doesn't get flooded. Something which we people from holland are very happy about. :)

[Moskitto]

Ice also floats because it's less dense than water, and some ice like in antarctica is over land anyway

[dancingoutlaw]

While capitalists in Australia, the USA and other places enjoy making lots of money of the poor sods in the poorer nations they also enjoy wreaking the planet for the rest of us.
One of the ways they are wreaking the planet is by putting out lots of green house gases. These gases (such as carbon dioxide) are natural in small amounts, and in fact necessary for human existence. What theses gases do is prevent heat waves bouncing of the earth's surface from radiating back out into space. This fine and dandy we like to live on a warmish planet. The problem is that with too many of these gases too much heat gets trapped and places like Tasmania start getting to 25 degrees in the winter. It does more then that though, it also melts the ice caps and increases the volume of the oceans (by expanding it) so the sea level rises. All this temperature change also stuffs up global weather patterns so that some places flood and others are in drought when it should be the other way around.
And get this, apparently with the ocean getting warmer and the gulf steam stuffing up we could be in for another ice age! (It's true! As contradictory as it may sound.)

What can we do about this then? Well we could over though all capitalists everywhere and implement a socialist society. But we can also get those greedy capitalists to go and make money by helping to fix it up. One way to slow down the process is for everyone to buy a solar hot water system, this marvellous devise heats up your water using just the Sun! And once you have the system it is completely free (and you save money on electricity). Another way is to get solar panels and or wind generators. But at a national or corporate level we need to invest more in cheap fuel cell cars. These produce just water (as a gas) as a by product. Sounds good. We also should get all those jet planes to fly a lower height. Do you know how much fuel they could save if they did? A hella of a lot. We need to move away from our hydrocarbon burning economy. We will have to do it eventually, better sooner I say. But while we must burn things we can burn cleaner fuels like biomass. This can be produced from a wide variety of plants (hemp is good).

But that is my say, what do you think? (I don't want posts about how global warming is not happening, it is!)


I agree. I believe that the energy production capabilities of this world need to change. A Hygrogen economy (even with its faults) is in my opinion the way to go. I don't think that socialism is going to bring this about so like the good capitalist that I am I have put my money where my mouth is and have invested a good sum (for me anyway) in fuel cell tech companies that produce engines for automobiles.

[F_Hayek]

Hydrogen isn't the solution either. On the first hand it sounds incredible but the main problem is the production, which unfortunately causes a lot of polution as well.

[bluerev002]

We could :


plant more trees
use cars less
simply use less electricity


...it might not help too much, but maybe if everyone did it it would take the ice caps longer to melt.

Overall we need more trees and plants and such

[F_Hayek]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2003, 07:52 PM
We could :


plant more trees
use cars less
simply use less electricity


...it might not help too much, but maybe if everyone did it it would take the ice caps longer to melt.

Overall we need more trees and plants and such
You know how much CO2 gets into the air with forrest fires? (or vulcano eruptions?)

[apathy maybe]

The ice caps on Antartica are over land. Antartica is a continent. When it melts it flows of the land into the sea.

Where are all the capitilists to say how they are going to fix it up?

[Moskitto]

only 2% of CO2 comes from industry anyway, most of it is from humans and aminals

plant more trees

This is a viable solution, infact even Algae has been show to reduce CO2 significantly in the el ninyo current, this is very definitely a solution

use cars less

This works in theory, but it ignores the fact that there's things that people do that actually need cars, converting cars to more environmentally friendly sources is a better idea.

simply use less electricity

again, how do we use less electricity? developing super conductors is the way forward, but what about now? How about alternative sources of energy. It does not help that the British government is halting Nuclear funding even though it is the only viable environmentally friendly source today and in the future nuclear fussion will be the only viable source for the future.

[bluerev002]

Turn off the lights when you leave the house, turn off the air conditioner when you leave the house... Dont leave your christmas tree on 24/7, dont watch so much TV...any of those little things can make a bit of a diffrece if everyone does it. ;)

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2003, 11:55 AM
Does'nt ice just displace the water anyway? how can the volume be increased? I'm just asking cause I've never understood this, it's like if you put an ice cube in a glass of water - when it melts there is no expansion as it was displacing the water beforehand no? Science was never my strong point.


Anyway...yes..... I agree global warming is definatley happening even in my lifetime I've noticed a change especially in England - i'ts roasting, wednesday was the hottest recorded day ever in London....
Its because of the Ice over Land, the actual North pole melting isnt going to do Jack shit to the sea level, but Greenland, siberia, Antarctica, all have ice over land, that is the problem.

I seriously could right essays on this, because it really pisses me off that some yank oil company can ruin the world and get away with it.

What most people write is only the half of the problems caused by global warming. They do not realise that infact those areas which are now tropical, given the slight increase in heat are predicted to be come desert. This is caused in combernation to the climatic changes in weather, as well as an increase in extream climatic events such as Hurricane's.

This does also not go into the humaitarian impact. Very large amounts of the worlds population are dependant on specific high yeild crops to provide food. If global warming is to continue to occure then these crops will be far less productive, as the enzyme's which keep the functioning are affected by temperature, hense the reason why you cant grow all crops every where. A myth exists that you will just be able to grow them in the newly temperate enviroments caused by this temperature change. Places such as siberia, this is wrong,m thses same crops are reliant on specific soil types, the newly temperate Zone's do not have the correct soil types for such crops. So in short global warming will be a humanitarian catastrophy, not just a problem for nature. It will affect us almost as much, if not more than nature. The world will recover its been around 65 million years or something like that, I doubt man kind will do anything permanent to it.

[redstar2000]

Found this while poking around...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...j-gwn081203.php (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/huoj-gwn081203.php)

It may all turn out to be "just one of those things"...

http://www.sawu.org/redgreenleft/YaBBImages/smoking.gif
___________________________

U.S. GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
___________________________

"...a disgusting and frightening website"
The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.sawu.org/redstar2000)
A site about communist ideas

[Moskitto]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2003, 04:31 PM
Found this while poking around...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...j-gwn081203.php (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/huoj-gwn081203.php)

It may all turn out to be "just one of those things"...

http://www.sawu.org/redgreenleft/YaBBImages/smoking.gif
___________________________

U.S. GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
___________________________

"...a disgusting and frightening website"
The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.sawu.org/redstar2000)
A site about communist ideas
probably isn't, only 2% of carbon dioxide is from industry anyway, if it is human activity which is doing it it's more likely to be the fact we've got 6 billion of us, all our animals, and billions of insects wondering around.

[mentalbunny]

There's this theory that we're still coming out of an ice age and all this warming up would happen anyway. However holes in the O-zone layer are not natural, and even if the world is warming up naturally we should still look after the environment in other ways. We need more green spaces and trees in cities, that will reduce the pollution and be helpful for asthma sufferers.

[Moskitto]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2003, 04:51 PM
There's this theory that we're still coming out of an ice age and all this warming up would happen anyway. However holes in the O-zone layer are not natural, and even if the world is warming up naturally we should still look after the environment in other ways. We need more green spaces and trees in cities, that will reduce the pollution and be helpful for asthma sufferers.
I have heard the coming out of the ice age theory and it is a good theory, but holes in the ozone layer are causing other problems which dwarf the effects they have on global warming, such as increased UV radiation and an increase in the risk of skin cancer.

[Durruti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2003, 07:36 PM
Turn off the lights when you leave the house, turn off the air conditioner when you leave the house... Dont leave your christmas tree on 24/7, dont watch so much TV...any of those little things can make a bit of a diffrece if everyone does it. ;)
Or don't celebrate Christmas. Don't have any lights or decorations. Maybe celebrate the original meaning of the holiday, the festival of Zeus/Jupiter (give away a few presents and have an orgy! I bet you won't be able to find any decorations to waste money on eithor).

As far as Global Warming being natural, I think NASA disagrees. Right wingers manufacture that evidence, but none of it acutally stands up. I think the proof is in ice core samples that show a several hundered percent increase in global warming chemicals (of which CO2 is only one) shortly after the start of the industrial revolution, and increasing rapidly after that. The rise resembles a rise that took place before the last ice age, but instead of taking place over thousands of years nearly the same levels have been reached in right around 100.

All those ideas (plant more trees, etc) are good if they can be done. Also,
Use less paper
buy less crap
NEVER EAT FAST FOOD
avoid beef if possible
shoot more capitalists...
Some of these ideas are more fun then others, others are more helpful, all will help slow global warming. But when you get down to it, what we need is a global revolution so that we can use clean technology to industrialize 3rd world nations. It is from the capitalist exploitation of these nations that the majority of enviornmental distruction comes... but we all knew that.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2003, 03:31 PM
Found this while poking around...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...j-gwn081203.php (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/huoj-gwn081203.php)

It may all turn out to be "just one of those things"...

http://www.sawu.org/redgreenleft/YaBBImages/smoking.gif
___________________________

U.S. GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
___________________________

"...a disgusting and frightening website"
The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.sawu.org/redstar2000)
A site about communist ideas
Yes, one artical which produses a possible cause of global warming. However that does not explain why the atmospheric temperature increase shows a colleration between early industrial expansion and this increase. It is especially obvious, considering the drop in the temperature increase is in line with the technological improvments to industry which have made it considerably cleaner, since the early industrial industrial revolution.

[Ghost Writer]

We have been through this before. Here are my views on "global warming" (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=7807&hl=).

[Politrickian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2003, 04:51 PM
There's this theory that we're still coming out of an ice age and all this warming up would happen anyway. However holes in the O-zone layer are not natural, and even if the world is warming up naturally we should still look after the environment in other ways. We need more green spaces and trees in cities, that will reduce the pollution and be helpful for asthma sufferers.
Where do you find O-zone?
On places where there is lighting.

When does lighting occur?
When hot air and cold air collide.

There is no hot air in the Antartic region, thus it can not collide with cold air, meaning that there is no way that you can find any lightning, meaning, hardly any O-zone.

Of course there are gonna be some man-made gasses which only make the effect worse, but the hole in the O-zone layer is not originally man-made.

[Durruti]

Wait... the hole in the ozone layer wasn't always there. It appeared and has been growing. If the lack of lightning was to blame there would never have been any ozone layer over the arctic...

And ghost, your link is about as full of holes as you can possibly get.
Lets just start with the comparson between the flat earth society and the people who believe in global warming. Well, first of all, the belief that the earth was flat was never proposed to people. It was taken for granted until a Greek proved the earth was round through mathematics... but it was "unproven" in a greater sense because no one bothered to sail around the world. It was not "proven" solidly until magellon sailed around the world. By the time of Columbus, everyone who was smarter than a brick knew that the earth was round... but a few people still believed this was untrue and did their best to prove otherwise.
Likewise Global Warming is a theory put forward and the belief that it doesn't exist is status quo, or was until it was affirmed millions of scientists around the world and finally by the Whitehouse within the last few years. So people who don't believe in global warming are a lot more like those people who think the earth is flat, but it still isn't "proven"... By the time it is proven New York will be a block of ice.
The argument was a very interesting and calculated attempt to envoke an emotional response to his multitude of flawed theories. In fact, the entire post was bunk science that ignored even the most basic logic....
For one example (off the top of my head), he questioned how a computer can predict climate changes hundreds of years in advance and yet not predict the weather tomarrow. Apparently he's never heard of Thermodynamics. Because of internal disturbances caused by heat and the flow of enegry it is impossible to predict, say, the tempature of a cup of coffee 3 seconds after it's poured. However, one can always predict the tempature in, say, half an hour. One can also predict an adverage tempature and tempature shift, however the internal dynamics make moment-to-moment prediction impossible. Likewise it is impossible to predict the weather tomarrow, but one can predict overall trends.
Clearly he's not trying to convince the scientific community, who would quickly debunk his theories. It is as if one were presenting him with the mathematical evidence that the Earth is round, and he were saying, "but look that way, you can tell it isn't! Why don't you question your insane theories?"

Even the above Eurika link validates it to a lesser extent, yet, as AK47 points out, their study doesn't explain a lot of things. Also their study can only view climate change over millions of years. In about half a million years I'm sure we'll know if they were right or not....
Oh, and by the way, the statement that there has been no correlation between CO2 and tempature change is eithor incorrect or a lie. There is a high corrilation. In fact, there was a rise in CO2 which coincided with the slow rise in tempature before the last ice age. CO2 and tempature are almost identical. http://chemistry.beloit.edu/Warming/moviep...ages/vostok.htm (http://chemistry.beloit.edu/Warming/moviepages/vostok.htm)

[Invader Zim]

Those who deny Global warming and its blatant causes are as ignorant of scientific methodology as they are lacking common sense, hence the reason why Norman is a "heretic" on this subject. Many study's have been made on the earths temperature, and steady patterns have emerged. These recordings of the earths past temperature are so accurate that they can sometimes even tell you the average temperature of a specific winter several thousand years ago. This is done by viewing layers of ice, different winters produce different layers of ice, rather like soil horizons, by viewing different characteristics of these layers of ice the date and temperature can be worked out, as with soil's age and base rock etc. Since the industrial revolution a steady increase in temperature has been recorded, temperature changes that would normally take centuries to occur reduced to decades etc. The pattern between this and industrialisation so blatantly obvious it almost hurts to see people deny its very existence, rather like people still clung on the old and foolish theories of infection after Snow's discovery. Traditionalists, fools and those with vested interests, historical attitudes seem to reoccur time and time again.

However even for those fools who continue to believe there almost Neolithic views on environmentalism, even they must see that there are other problems caused by green house gases, even if global warming is not one of them. Many of the green house gases such as Carbon Dioxide, etc are also principal causes other environmental problems. Acid Rain being one of them, acid rain is a serious problem for obvious reasons I will however spell it out for those unbelievers stuck in the stone age. Acid rain kills fish and other animals dependant on water of a specific pH, trees, crops and other vegetation, damages buildings and monuments, corrodes copper, damages such man-made things as cars, reduces soil fertility and can cause toxic metals to leach into underground drinking water sources. This only scratches the surface of the many issues involved with acid rain, I could virtually go on for ever. So here is another good reason to slap the capitalist oil companies, etc.

For those idiots who bullshit about the holes in the Ozone layer being all natural and nothing to do with humanities filthy habits, wake up and smell the coffee people. For example: -

Where do you find O-zone?
On places where there is lighting.

When does lighting occur?
When hot air and cold air collide.

There is no hot air in the Antartic region, thus it can not collide with cold air, meaning that there is no way that you can find any lightning, meaning, hardly any O-zone.

Of course there are gonna be some man-made gasses which only make the effect worse, but the hole in the O-zone layer is not originally man-made.

What you have said does not take into account the fact there is also a large hole over Australia... which is not really cold. Also Ozone moves across the globe and concentrates in different places, which may explain why the hole over the Antarctic is not over the USA. It does not however alter the fact that the process if not caused by man, is at least sped up by man. Not to mention the primitive view on how storms and depressions are formed.

[BOZG]

probably isn't, only 2% of carbon dioxide is from industry anyway,

Are you sure about that? Industry is attributed with causing 32% of the effects of global warming so I would say that CO2 contributions are higher than 2%. The USA is credited with 25% of all global CO2 emissions and if the majority of those emissions are due to human and animal activity, why is Europe responsible for much lower levels of CO2 emissions. I also know that cars amount for 21% of CO2 emissions so I cannot see how industry would be such a drastically less percentage.




plant more trees
use cars less
simply use less electricity

While good practical day-to-day ideas, they will not really acheive very much without proper alternatives. A British Royal Commission on the environment called for a 60% reduction in emissions and this is considered to be too low by some groups who would call for a figure nearer to 80% to continue sustainable growth.




The left has been atrocious with its attitude towards the environment over the years. We've been very quick to criticize capitalism for the effects it has on the environment and rightfully so but we've never really posed any solid alternative. Last week, I had two meetings on Socialism and the Environment and when preparing for the meetings, I tried searching for articles online in relation to the issue, to see what socialist alternative ideas I could find. What were my results? Absolutely nothing. The only half-assed solution to the problem I could find was an SPGB article in which, one of their solutions was to support the old utopian socialist idea of decentralisation of industry and therefore we could spread the pollution over a vast area and not concentrate on a single area. This is a terrible idea and only a short-term solution to a long term problem. Eventually I came across a pamphlet called "Planning Green Growth" by Pete Dickenson, which was probably the most comprehensive idea for the environment but even then I consider it to be somewhat weak. Unfortunately, we do not have much time to say that we'll sort this out after the revolution, that we'll come up with alternatives and the usual rhetoric from the left on the issue, we need to start coming up with concrete plans now which can provide a sustainable environment, without calling for a recession in economic growth (which is the only solution at the moment) and without having to scrap the idea of superabundance, which would call for vast increased production.

[Invader Zim]

I believe that the only real solution to the issue of global warming is to cease using materials/energy based on the processing/burning of fossil fuels. If the capitalistic oil companys bothered to invest in these new alternative sorces of energy then they wpuld probably save in the long run. Yet living for short term gain is a very capitalistic habbit, I doubt they will ever come around until its to late.

As fossil fuels are non renuable it seams logical to me to invest now before the enivitable occurs, we run out. Then the companys will be able to just change over rather than go out of buisness. Then again logic has never been a capitalist attribute, just another reason for the enevitable fall of capitalism.

[pedro san pedro]

the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change, mad eup of over 2500 of the worlds leading climate scientists acknowledges uniamounsly that global warming is occuring at an unprecedented rate, directly because of human activity, and every government agrees with them.
a large number of 'climate skeptics' have been funded by the oil industry, and many have no background in climate science.
global warming is a natural process, but it is accelerating at an alarming rate, directly due to human activity. there is now more co2 in the atmosphere than at any point in the last 140000 yrs, if not more (according to ice core sample studies)
sea levels i believe rise more due to an increase in temperature -> expansion than there being more water in liquid form, but i may be mistaken.
viable alternatives to fossil fuels exsit, and we must utilise them as quikly as possible. wind power able alternative for powering national grids -denmark produces around 18% of its national grid thru wind power, and are on track to get to 50% by 2050
the english government has also just announced plans to build a wind farm large enough to power 1 in 6 homes.
renwables are one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and already employs over 30,000 people

mean while, bush looks to oil, as does austrailia

the usa has 4% of the worlds population, put pumps out over 25% of the worlds emmissions, and aussie has the highest emission rate per capuita -about 27 tonnes of co2 per capita per annum (the 3rd world sits at about 11 T)
why must the super rich desrtoy the planet for us all?

[mentalbunny]

Maybe Norm's one of those kids who went to a school with text books sponsored by the big corps, there's one Esso or Shell book that says burning oil does not cause any environmental problems and that all other forms of fuel are totally inefficient and bad for the planet.

[Moskitto]

Originally posted by pedro san [email protected] 22 2003, 12:50 PM
a large number of 'climate skeptics' have been funded by the oil industry, and many have no background in climate science.
It's very common for big businesses to hire people to publish some pseudo-science to counter campaigns against big-tobacco, oil companies, fast food etc. There's even a website devoted to this pseudo-science which every article is filled with obvious holes, junkscience.com (http://www.junkscience.com) I believe is the name, written by 2 tobacco industry lobbyists, FOX columnists and US government employees.

[sledovatel]

isn't the ozone layer created when ultraviolet rays affect the oxygen rich air? if that is the case, then of course there would be a hole over the two poles at varying times of the year. the sun only hits the north and south poles at certain times of the year, producing ozone. when the sun isn't hitting it, there is little-to-no ultraviolet rays. as there are no rays creating a reaction with the oxygen, there is no ozone created. and of course the ozone is not needed at those times as there are no ultraviolet rays.

-s

[Moskitto]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2003, 06:46 PM
isn't the ozone layer created when ultraviolet rays affect the oxygen rich air? if that is the case, then of course there would be a hole over the two poles at varying times of the year. the sun only hits the north and south poles at certain times of the year, producing ozone. when the sun isn't hitting it, there is little-to-no ultraviolet rays. as there are no rays creating a reaction with the oxygen, there is no ozone created. and of course the ozone is not needed at those times as there are no ultraviolet rays.

-s
That's what I was thinking, I've always been told UV creates ozone in oxygen rich air and lightning fixes nitrogen into soils.

also how long have they been able to detect ozone levels in the upper atmosphere? not for as long as we've had industrialisation i'd bet.

[sledovatel]

they've known about the ozone layer since the 1880's, but mostly they just knew that it, or something like it, existed. it wasn't until the 1920s when they could actually confirm that it was up there and what it was made up of and what it did. and not until the 1980s when they became "sophisticated" enough to claim that the ozone was being depleted by man. of course now they admit that the ozone holes are closing. hmmm, could it be a seasonal thing? hard to say, seeings how we have ALL this great data dating waaay back to the 1980s... maybe now they'll revert back to the old claim from the 60s and 70s that we are experiencing "global cooling." i guess there always has to be some great global catastrophe for the governments to lay more laws on us...

-s