Climate Change Thread

[Husar]

Methane is not stable in the atmosphere, and is converted into carbon dioxide in 8-9 years on average (it's also vulnerable to UV radiation, which is why its discovery on Mars is interesting):
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/fe...00409_methane/

Thus, the direct effect of this methane should not last long as it comes from a storage that will deplete.

So we try to cshock-release all the methane at once by heating the earth as fast as possible and then wait 8-9 years until we're all crisp and the methane is gone again? Surely the people and plants in Africa, India, China, South, Central and North America, Southern Europe etc. could survive a mere 8-9 years of hellish desertification without whining too much about not having any food or water.

I wondered why there isnt a cycle for methane, considering that there has almost certainly been methane production on the same scale as our current cow population throughout the planet's history (somehow I dont believe that dinosaurs didnt have similar bodily functions as modern bovine.) That earth hasnt turned into mars from it indicates there must be some countering force.

Quite a few things were different back then, there was also more oxygen in the atmosphere and insects could grow much larger due to that.
Are you saying that you'd want to revert to a time where spiders groiw so large that they could eat you?

Also here: http://www.livescience.com/44330-jur...n-dioxide.html

There is one thing to keep in mind though: A lot of natural changes are very slow, giving living things centuries to adapt in most cases. Sudden changes on the other hand often lead to extinction, such as that of the dinosaurs. The graph in the OP nicely demonstrates that this could be a comparatively fast change that we are looking that. Now imagine that a lot of the plants and animals we rely on for food just die out because they can't handle the changes so fast. That we have air conditioning is useless if all the crops and trees die because the bees succumbed to the heat for example... (fictional example, I'm not sure which temperature changes would be required to kill off which species, but coral reefs die now already)

[Greyblades]

I dont need to be persuaded over global warming, it's the cows methane being a great contributor I have problems getting my head around; there must be a way that methane has been extracted from the atmosphere otherwise we'd already be at venus levels after ~3.5 billion years of buildup.

[Legs]

I dont need to be persuaded over global warming, it's the cows methane being a great contributor I have problems getting my head around; there must be a way that methane has been extracted from the atmosphere otherwise we'd already be at venus levels after ~3.5 billion years of buildup.

Perhaps the thing with cows is the intensification/industrialisation over the past century.

[Viking]

there must be a way that methane has been extracted from the atmosphere otherwise we'd already be at venus levels after ~3.5 billion years of buildup.

The stability of methane in the atmosphere is explained in post #13. That means that if you want more methane in the atmosphere, you need more sources of methane, which more cows may represent.

[Fragony]

Can I say something that sounds really nasty, stop helping people who are overbreeding. Most sibblings used to die but science caught up and most survive. And need recourses.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

meant to reply to this yesterday but got caught up.

Yes, the exhale thing is already part of the cycle so to speak. The real greenhouse burden is the sheer number of humans and their concomitant desire for power and services.

My key points really boiled down to:

1) the predicted heat levels are not going to scour life from the planet or eliminate biodiversity. Earth has be much hotter in the past and still had a rich variety and breadth of life forms (source of those fossil fuels as you will recall). I will stipulate that a large "die-off" among current species would engender problems for human beings, it is just that the real doom-and-gloomers (we are killing the planet types) are a bit off base.

2) efforts to ameliorate the anthropomorphic warming that is part of the current up cycle (see this source are warranted, but that our primary response will have to be adaptation to a new normal.

Consider:

In 1900, which a number of sources point to as the last point in history when human greenhouse impact was clearly within the carrying capacity of the planet, humans consumed approximately 50 exajoules of energy from various sources, the bulk of which were non-fossil. Our current consumption is about 550 exajoules (source). In that time span, world population totals have gone from roughly 2 billion to 7.4 billion. Thus our energy consumption per capita has more than tripled.

Trying to take the Earth back to that "carrying capacity" point (and yes it is arguable, but I needed some baseline) would require that we collectively stop the use of 90% of the world's current power use or replace that power use with non-fossil sources (or some combination of both).

Replacement has a LONG way to go also, since non-fossil sources are being used for only 130 exajoules or so of that 550. Worldwide, solar power constitutes less than 60 gigajoules (and remember that giga is 10 to the 9th, whereas exa is 10 to the 18th). Hydropower and nuclear sources constitute no more than 75 exajoules (non-fossil biofuels making up the rest of the 130 exajoule figure noted above).

ALL of the non-fossil alternatives are substantially more costly than the fossil fuels in terms of power generation. A coal-fired power generation plant is cheap in relative terms.


NOT saying we cannot make an impact in the warming trend -- we have already, so we can clearly do so in the other direction -- but the current crop of solution ideas our there (more government control, economic cutbacks, punish the fossil energy companies) can't do more than slow the trend moderately. So yes, we must start and continue to reduce our production of greenhouse gasses, particularly the more persistent forms.

We will have to grow ourselves out of this -- the growth of our species signals the need for MORE, not less power consumption. Solar delivered through our atmosphere is a nothing, so how do we get the unadulterated stuff down here for our use? Fission is useful, but though it's waste is a small amount, the radiation concerns are lengthy ones, can we make fusion practical before my son is old and gray? Can we rework our aging agriculture irrigation systems to be power generating systems at the same time? Maybe Tesla was correct and we have merely to tap into the existing energy that is the earth itself?


In short:

We are too far along in this trend to shift it's direction fast enough to avoid significant consequences. SO, make the necessary adaptations.

Curtailment of energy uses is at best a limited response, though we should convert more and more to non-greenhouse sources as resources allow.

Something "new" will have to be created to truly solve the problem.

[Husar]

Can I say something that sounds really nasty, stop helping people who are overbreeding. Most sibblings used to die but science caught up and most survive. And need recourses.

So kill them rather than fix the issues? Ever heard of the idea that some people get many children because they hope some of them will survive or pay for their retirement etc.? How about we fix their medical and retirement issues instead of starving their children on purpose?

1) the predicted heat levels are not going to scour life from the planet or eliminate biodiversity. Earth has be much hotter in the past and still had a rich variety and breadth of life forms (source of those fossil fuels as you will recall). I will stipulate that a large "die-off" among current species would engender problems for human beings, it is just that the real doom-and-gloomers (we are killing the planet types) are a bit off base.

I think you oversimplify a bit unless you want to say that a world of oversized cockroaches and scorpions in a desert environment would be a nice place for us to live in. As I said above, if we lose species such as bees, we also lose a lot of plants. And if this happens very fast in comparison, evolution is probably not fast enough to adapt unless we are talking bacteria and species that are already very tough.

2) efforts to ameliorate the anthropomorphic warming that is part of the current up cycle (see this source are warranted, but that our primary response will have to be adaptation to a new normal.

Again, the immigration is already a big topic now, if the new normal is that half of Africa will come to live in northern Europe, I'm not sure if people will just adapt to that and go "I bought that second car, now I house an African family in my home to adapt to the consequences."

In 1900, which a number of sources point to as the last point in history when human greenhouse impact was clearly within the carrying capacity of the planet, humans consumed approximately 50 exajoules of energy from various sources, the bulk of which were non-fossil. Our current consumption is about 550 exajoules (source). In that time span, world population totals have gone from roughly 2 billion to 7.4 billion. Thus our energy consumption per capita has more than tripled.

Trying to take the Earth back to that "carrying capacity" point (and yes it is arguable, but I needed some baseline) would require that we collectively stop the use of 90% of the world's current power use or replace that power use with non-fossil sources (or some combination of both).

Replacement has a LONG way to go also, since non-fossil sources are being used for only 130 exajoules or so of that 550. Worldwide, solar power constitutes less than 60 gigajoules (and remember that giga is 10 to the 9th, whereas exa is 10 to the 18th). Hydropower and nuclear sources constitute no more than 75 exajoules (non-fossil biofuels making up the rest of the 130 exajoule figure noted above).

ALL of the non-fossil alternatives are substantially more costly than the fossil fuels in terms of power generation. A coal-fired power generation plant is cheap in relative terms.[/QUOTE]

A few issues/questions:
1) What do we do when fossils run out in 30 years? Just say "that sucks" and watch all our food go bad because the cooling units are offline? Just not drive to work anymore?

2) That non-fossils currently don't produce enough output is hardly a secret, but if we don't invest in them, they never will...
There is a lot of energy coming from the sun, it is completely free of charge and already provides more than enough energy for all the biological life that has developed here. There are also plenty of ways to convert it to electrical energy, you forgot to mention wind farms for example. We may not even have to replace those entire 550 exajoules if we are clever and manage to reduce our usage. A shrinking population would be a nice step, but we are currently working hard in the other direction.

NOT saying we cannot make an impact in the warming trend -- we have already, so we can clearly do so in the other direction -- but the current crop of solution ideas our there (more government control, economic cutbacks, punish the fossil energy companies) can't do more than slow the trend moderately. So yes, we must start and continue to reduce our production of greenhouse gasses, particularly the more persistent forms.

We will have to grow ourselves out of this -- the growth of our species signals the need for MORE, not less power consumption. Solar delivered through our atmosphere is a nothing, so how do we get the unadulterated stuff down here for our use? Fission is useful, but though it's waste is a small amount, the radiation concerns are lengthy ones, can we make fusion practical before my son is old and gray? Can we rework our aging agriculture irrigation systems to be power generating systems at the same time? Maybe Tesla was correct and we have merely to tap into the existing energy that is the earth itself?

Isn't this why we should try to stop growing? At some future point it will have to happen anyway unless we want to ruin the planet in other ways or just wait until we actually run out of food.
There's also a yellowish-red fusion reactor that sends energy to us all the time for the next few million years or so, then we have this other cosmic friend that moves the entire water of the oceans around all the time...

I think we have plenty of natural energy sources, we just need to begin to use them. Some of the technology was already in development before WW1, that the change is a lot harder now is entirely our fault for focusing on the wrong tech all the time without thinking about the consequences. We can't realistically expect to use fossil fuels for the next 200 years even if there were no warming effects, we'll simply run out...

[Fragony]

I know that what I said is nasty Hus, but isn't it true that overpolution is a problem. And no.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Isn't this why we should try to stop growing? At some future point it will have to happen anyway unless we want to ruin the planet in other ways or just wait until we actually run out of food.
There's also a yellowish-red fusion reactor that sends energy to us all the time for the next few million years or so, then we have this other cosmic friend that moves the entire water of the oceans around all the time...

I think we have plenty of natural energy sources, we just need to begin to use them. Some of the technology was already in development before WW1, that the change is a lot harder now is entirely our fault for focusing on the wrong tech all the time without thinking about the consequences. We can't realistically expect to use fossil fuels for the next 200 years even if there were no warming effects, we'll simply run out...

Efforts to curtail growth in human societies have always had a strong negative backlash on one level or another. Growing our way out of this problem is not going to be a volume growth effort, it will have to involve advancement in several areas of energy production. Yes that means we will have to make more of solar, geothermal and nuclear powers -- but the amount of power being used cannot be curtailed enough to make a difference without a world dictatorship plunging 90% of the planet into an agrarian existence. We could reduce emissions to zero tomorrow and STILL have to adapt to a warmer planet and different sea levels which will persist for a substantial period of time. And you are well aware that that kind of radicalized solution won't happen.

And we currently produce enough food to feed the entire global population 1.4 times despite numerous sub-optimal production efforts (not that the food gets to the right spots mind you, just that it is made).