The world is getting hotter inevitably due to a historic climate change show to occur over the ages.
Humans may or may not be contributing to the warming.
There is no way humans can stop the climate getting hotter even if they left absolutly no foot print...that is the key..we wont stop it.
alex
My feelings exactly Alex
Over "real" time fluctuations in temperature are known to occur. In fact I saw a doco a little while ago showing a sharp rise in temperature just preceeding an ice age!! Could this be the real threat? If so our concerns are misplaced entirely as this would decimate life rather than make it less comfortable.
I don't like the way we treat our planet. Since becoming interested in AStrology and more aware of other planets environments I have become more aware of just what a jewel our planet is. But, like you, I don't believe all the hype.
On the subjects raised earlier of Solar panels, I remember that one politician on the radio stated that he had spent $30,000 on panelling his entire roof. However, the savings gained from purchasing a new, more efficient beer fridge for the garage rivalled the savings in grid power consumption over a very short time!
We think of ourselves as important just because we are the most intelligent life form to populate the planet. But this doesnt mean these environmental fluctuations will stop even if we thought we could influence them.
Since our energy originates from the Sun it seems like common sense to go straight to the source for our power needs. I'm confident that efficient technologies could be brought on line if there was enough political interest in the necessary research to develop them. Sticking our heads in the sand and saying there's nothing we can do seems irresponsible.
I haven't looked into the desalination technology but I think it uses vast amounts of electricity? There are glaringly obvious preferable alternatives to this.
With regard to general politics, I see the degradation of our education system as the greatest modern crime committed by the powerful against the pleb's, closely followed by the degradation of our media. The true journalist seems to be an endangered species.
Have a look around the web, creationist, earth centrist and even germ theory deniers. Power and money are the usual drivers for these people but sometimes it's just because they are insane.
Have a look around the web, creationist, earth centrist and even germ theory deniers. Power and money are the usual drivers for these people but sometimes it's just because they are insane.
Who are you looking at???
My driver has always been hearing the sound of my own voice and even to me I sound strange .. but I have a good heart so all is forgiven .
I think if one thinks about who is saying something and who pays their way you get an idea of where they will fall ...and the good thing about the net you can look and find out so much info... sadly you can build a case for and exclude the case against but you would be crazy to think there is not something covered on all sides..so how good is that..past that we may have to think about the arguements for ourselves...most like prepackaged as they are well marketed.
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
This site has a nice graph... is it reasonable? has the data been reviewed? I dont know... but my point you have to be very critical of everything before you...I wish I could be more so.
alex
Well I watched this doco today, via bit torrent download.
Lots of interesting data and it all conflicts, and suggests that sol is the cause of the problem, which when looking at the solar activity data does correlate with the global rise in temperature. Notable correlations is the mini ice age in which no sunspot activity was recorded for 70 years.
To be honest, not being a scientist makes it hard to truely gauge who is telling the correct side of the story. Time will tell though. Unless you are a meteorologist or have scientific training in this field I would not discount this theory as a possible cause of global warming. The CO2 increase shown in this data flows 800 years behind the rises in temperature. The heat comes first then the CO2 rises. Lots of the data is being misread by someone and I wonder who that is. Sols electromagnetic field has been highly energised this last century and it is strange that most of the temperature increase occurred before the 1940's and then it went down during the post war industrialisation for 30 years.
One interesting point is that people who disagree with the current line of thinking are accused of being in the employ of the oil companies. Maybe some would be but not all.
yes rumples, that's how it is, even though the government itself earns the lion's share of the profits off oil with excise. Today activism is tolerated as long as you follow the politically correct line of thought. Step outside that and you are marginalized and the fingers begin to point at you.
If I look deep enough into the money trails I see all sorts of conflicting things. Like the fact that prince philip created the World Wide Fund for Nature that spawned Greenpeace, yet Phillip is married to the queen of england, who controls the house of Windsor, which owns the controlling share of Rio Tinto and has interests in half the other mining companies on the planet.
I bet with all this rain the deals have been done for both Melbourne and Sydney desalinators...
It must work like buying a new scope.. so I bet its their fault not those of us who punish ourselves that it was the lastest scope, mount or camera purchase that did it..
6 billion must get us a lot of rain..
And the rain in Queensland suggest maybe they are thinking about one..wow that would be 9 billion..floods for sure.
Money makes the world go around that nothing new ..the good side of the GW without comment as to overall success..is that folk may be a little thriftier..it was the way when I was a kid and more so in my fathers day..waste is a sin..maybe that will be addressed.. so that is good.
but it will get hot I reckon either way and people will profit.. so whats so new about that..zip
alex
Had the pleasure of seeing Mr Gore on midday TV.. good on him.. great show.
But the way he tells it GW is here now..maybe it is.
He says he is carbon nuetral because he trades off the imbalance..invests in forrests whatever...but I would still like to see some panels on the roof and some personal sacrifice to lead the others...but its all good.
He is worried about the sea wiping out cities and showed five little things we could all do to help (relieve the guilt he put there I guess whist selling the movie) and although I see thru his game some good will come ..people may do some little things..buy a light bulb..who owns that company??? well who cares ..its one of those things that will get people doing something together ..how nice is that.
Still raining ..all the rain is going down the drain.. I wonder how much energy to pump that much water thru a desalinator... there is a lot of money running down the streets right now... do desalinators add to greenhouse?
Without dealing with how..if all the ice melted all over ..how much will the sea rise??? this was avoided in rebutal to the fact the ice mass to our South is growing not shrinking???
If it did how high I wonder world over? A few places would go under or not?
I'm still a little dubious about Big Ol' Uncle Al.
Despite his repeated denials, I still think he'll eventually have another tilt at the White House and what better way than to ride on this 'Wave' of enviro-politics.
Call me cynical, if you like. But once a politician....
It's certainly given him a very prominent position from which to run. And even if it turns out he's wrong, which will be nigh on impossible to prove during our lifetimes, he still looks like he was acting in the best interests of our planet.
He has assumed a very significant position in a growing global 'consciousness'.
He does not fool me and I think he would be a fool if he was not working the angles..with a take of $46 million on the deal he is well paid for getting people to focus on their waste.
Matt I have to give him a fair go ..I have been very cruel in the past and he must be right he was on TV for goodness sake.
So long as the PM does not come out saying this is all we need to go nuclear I dont care.. many things I fear will be pushed to save us when in fact that is remote... but it so interesting to see this all pass by...
And it is worse than the y2k bug so I worry they cant fix it.
alex
An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including sea level rise, and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation resulting in floods and drought. There may also be changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, though it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Other effects may include changes in agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.
The quote above is from wikipedia.
From what I see happening in the world all of this is happening now. Even the flu is getting worse each year as has been so tragically demonstrated in WA and Asia. Dont listen to what people say, just look at the world around us, all this is happening now. the Great Barrier Reef is in great danger because of climate change. Glaciers throughout the world are shrinking and many say that the glaciers are the Earths canneries. The effects of global warming have many more effects then just us getting a bit warmer. The biggest threat with global warming I see for us today is climate change.
The only thing that is placed above the safety and heath interests of the community, are the profit levels of the major world company's. Thats why many of them cant or wont see global warming is real and spread misinformation to confuse us even more. We are all free to make up our own mind about the problem. As you can tell I'm on Al Gore side
The greens would have us all drive fuel cell electic cars and use solar panels.
Although electric propulsion is efficicient, the manufacture, delivery and storage of Hydrogen for fuel cells is extremely inefficient. Maufacturing Hydrogen is very electric power intensive, guess where that power comes from, coal fired power stations!!.
With todays technology, a hydrogen powered fuel cell powered electric car generates double the greenhouse gas a regular petrol car does. Banning fuel cell electric cars should be the 1st priority!.
Silicon solar panels, use lots of silicon (duh), glass and steel framing. The energy required to make a solar panel (think processing silicon and glass from sand, and steel from raw materials) is VASTLY more than the energy the solar cell would ever produce in its lifetime.
The greens would have us all drive fuel cell electic cars and use solar panels.
Although electric propulsion is efficicient, the manufacture, delivery and storage of Hydrogen for fuel cells is extremely inefficient. Maufacturing Hydrogen is very electric power intensive, guess where that power comes from, coal fired power stations!!.
Fred
3 words solve that problem "nuclear power plant" its the year 2007 coal fired power stations should be a thing of the past, but the coal industry is worth billions of dollars a year so we are stuck with 100 year old technology thats dangerous to our health and environment. Nuclear power is clean, safe and efficient. Lots of countries use them without trouble. yes I know about Chernobyl....... But Australia isn't the same as the Soviet Union, so I don't see that as a excuse not to go nuclear.
Having worked in heavy industry I've been able to see first hand how safety standards deteriorate when the company is under financial pressure. Plant maintenance is minimised and short-cuts are taken in operating procedures. The boss will heavily police the wearing of safety glasses though to give the illusion of being concerned about safety. When something goes wrong only one bunny needs to be found to take the blame. I would not be happy living next to a nuclear power generator.
Absolutely Joe, with you there, now tell the greens, see how far you get. They are in dream land, no appreciation of reality. Its the only clean BASELINE power scource we can have now, all the rest is intermittent puffery (solar, wind, etc).
Having worked in heavy industry I've been able to see first hand how safety standards deteriorate when the company is under financial pressure. Plant maintenance is minimised and short-cuts are taken in operating procedures. The boss will heavily police the wearing of safety glasses though to give the illusion of being concerned about safety. When something goes wrong only one bunny needs to be found to take the blame. I would not be happy living next to a nuclear power generator.
I agree with that 100% it happens in most company's now. Even the one I work for is guilty of that.
I would be happy to live near a nuclear power plant, now a coal fire fueled plant I wouldn't want to live 100 kms from one. you have much bigger odds being killed in a car crash then a nuclear power plant accident but that dosent stop you traveling by car
Absolutely Joe, with you there, now tell the greens, see how far you get. They are in dream land, no appreciation of reality. Its the only clean BASELINE power scource we can have now, all the rest is intermittent puffery (solar, wind, etc).
Fred
I agree most of the greens are pot smoking tree huggers and live in there own fantasyland. I am a bit green myself (not in a pot smoking tree hugging way) but I care about my environment around me, and nuclear power seems like a good choice with the technology we have now. So in 100 years time we will have much better air then another 100 years more of coal power
.
...and the good thing about the net you can look and find out so much info... sadly you can build a case for and exclude the case against but you would be crazy to think there is not something covered on all sides..so how good is that..past that we may have to think about the arguements for ourselves...most like prepackaged as they are well marketed.
