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A 1C or few C rise in temperature would allow more organisms to thrive in wider parts of the globe. On the other hand the natural planet-killer events will wipe-out most large species either immediately, or make the climate harsh for years and kill the initial survivors that way.
I have 0% chance of dying from GW in the next decades; my chances of dying from a planet-killer are similar to buying a lottery ticket each day. I'd prefer any GW-research-$ be used for scanning the skies, and developing technology to prevent impacts.
Oh, NASA is tracking some 1,000 potentially hazardous asteroids.
If an asteroid hits, we won't have to worry about bark beetles, climate change or even another episode of Rosie O'Donnell's variety show.
You know NASA is going to solve the asteroid issue by putting a few hyperspace shooters in orbit.
You miss the OP's point. To use you example, you're worrying how you car handles while it is going off a cliff. He was saying that there may be dangers to mankind that are magnitudes greater than GW (even if it is real).
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Trouble is, there are 10,000 out there.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
And the millions of non-periodic comets that can come from the Oort cloud outside of the solar system? Or the comets of the Kuiper Belt by Neptune? Some of these comets are in thousand year orbits of the sun, like the Levy Shoemaker comets that hit Jupiter. If a comet comes from the other side of the sun, travelling at a typical 100,000 mph, you have a few days notice. NASA does not have any accounting of these millions of objects, nor really looks for them. And unless Bruce Willis has been training, we have no ready defense.
Jupiter was hit just 20 years ago by comets that would have killed almost everything except cockroaches. Do you like playing a lottery. This issue is many times more important than the UN considering whether mankind can make a small change in what is a normally changing climate.
What does the earthquake swarm mean?
It is our opinion, and in agreement with Dr. Robert Smith of the University of Utah, that the current events are more of a major seismic event rather than a major volcanic event. The Alert Status of Yellowstone continues, at this time, to remain at the Green Alert Level. We do not anticipate the Alert Level to be raised at this time.
The CONSENSUS is a large part of the USA will be covered by volcanic ash if that volcano erupts. It is several times the size of Mt St Helens. Maybe now is the time for that extra coat of wax on the car.
The crater atop Mount St. Helens is about 2 square miles. The Yellowstone "caldera" — a depression in the Earth equivalent to a crater top — is some 1,500 square miles.
The 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption blew 1,300 vertical feet off the mountain, sent an eruption column 80,000 feet high in 15 minutes, ejected 1.4 billion cubic yards of ash detectable over 22,000 square miles, and killed 57 people.
But the last major eruption at Yellowstone, some 640,000 years ago, ejected 8,000 times the ash and lava of Mount St. Helens.
And that wasn't even the largest eruption in Yellowstone's prehistoric past.
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/supervolcano/under/under.html
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..."The Spokane area has been buried by 6.5 feet of snow since the middle of December. That included 7.5 inches that fell at Spokane International Airport on Monday, a record for the date."...
Interesting that WA state a cradle of recent WW global warming protestations, the above is happening.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
And I also wonder what % of advertised-range you'd get when you use battery power to run front and rear defrosters, run the wipers, run the lights, maybe put on a radio and operate in -10F weather.
Obviously the solar panels would not be functioning to efficiencies necessary to provide electrical needs.....
Having just seen an ice storm, I think you'd need to cut down any tree within 50' of a panel. I also don't know how effective they would be buried under snow and ice. And here in NH at this time of year we're lucky to get 8 hr/week of sunshine because of the short days and constant cloud-cover.
When the weather turns bad everyone around here who has power, is using a liquid fuel - either propane or going to the gas station for gasoline, to power a generator.
How do I kinow ? I'm old, I've retired from big oil, I live in the U.K., (no tears, just send money), I've had two lots of cardiac surgery, a heart attack and lost a kidney to cancer, (and other ailments I won't bother you with), I drive a Volvo diesel and - big surprise - I'm cynical. So, you see, I know these things. Mr Gore is an amateur...........his Global Warming horse went lame and will shortly be shot. Come to the pro's if you want the real skinny.
So, once again, repeat after me............."Global Warming is............"
Now all that snow and low temps makes perfect sense.
Keep smilin'. It makes everyone else think you know something they don't.
I think you may be correct in that I have seen some ever so slight back-pedaling by the media on the whole GW thing.
This morning as I was off work (schools closed again by snow & ice) I was watching a History channel show on "The Little Ice Age". As part of the discussion they had a climatologist talking about what caused a 4-7 degree drop in global temperatures long before the industrial revolution.
He stated "It just shows how we have NO CONTROL over the climate".
This is a small admission from a station which has run shows centering on how we will all be drowning in a few years when the ice caps melt.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/31/will-earth-survive-when-the-sun-becomes-- a-red-giant/
It sure looks like nature trumps anything man is going to do. And I thought if I was just gentler on the Earf, it would be a paradise and nourish us.
Like on shuttles built for a billion people - you know, simple stuff !!!
..."About 93 percent of Venezuela's export revenue comes from oil sales, mostly to the U.S."...
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It amazes me that you do not see the connection and the results of what you said AND the connections.
You came back with a link about Chavez and his social oil program.
I'm not connecting the dots, but I'd love to hear what I'm missing.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
How are you holding up Kernick?
We may as well talk about it since we can't do anything about it (until Al tells us what we can do).
I was hoping for some warm weather to help the melting, but a cold-front's coming in tonight and we're expectin temps. to be 0 - 20F the next week. Fortunately my oil tank was filled recently. I need to run that, as I had a burst-baseboard-pipe in a closed-off bedroom, when just using my woodstove.
My hot-tub has snow on it, and is shutoff (to save energy).
Besides that, I'm just loving the cold weather.
The cold does build character.
I talked to a guy Sunday from Glenallen, AK. He used that stuff in his house. He just shuts down and leaves Drains most of the water out of the lines. But says the stuff just does not burst even if you have water in a low spot. If you ask people up there what they think of this climate change you will get about the same response as Kernick will give you. Bring it on as fast as you can. They have hit -62 degrees up there already. And it is not into the real cold time of year. As you well know. It has been -20 in Anchorage for the last week. I don't miss it at all. I was just out working in the yard in my shorts and T shirt. 72 wonderful degrees. What ever we are doing to the climate. I LIKE IT.....
The cold does build character.
I guess it's not as bad as the character-building methods of many tribes I've seen on Nat. Geo. Jumping off the 80' tower with the vine around the ankle, that stops you just short of the ground, is slightly worse.
I never had hot water baseboard heat but I thought an antifreeze mix was SOP. Well, there was a rental in Anchorage back in the early days with baseboard heat. Went camping for 3 days during a cold snap and all the pipes in the triplex busted, the toilets, you name it. We wound up camping in the apartment for another week with just a wood stove for backup.
I ran a new line to an outdoor faucet with PEX and a Shark fitting to replace a PVC line that had frozen in a barely conditioned crawlspace, so I'm hoping for no more problems there. I do drain that line in the fall though.
Back to the subject, one guy in Uganda is worried about climate change. Well, not too topical since he doesn't talk about cars directly.
Well it is topical because as any good psych. student will tell you when you live in poverty like 2/3 of the world's population, and struggle for survival and your food for tomorrow, you're not really going to be thinking about how green your lifestyle is. Hence you have people who will use whatever fuel is available, in whatever way is possible. As I've said before the gasoline I may not burn, may then be hacked from a pipe in Nigeria and burned in some village there.
Even if the entire advanced world got off fossil fuels in the next 20 years, all that does is lower the price of the fossil fuels such that poorer societies can and will use them. The overall usage rate drops, but the fact that the fossil fuels will be burnt is not in doubt. Only an entire global population with readily available, inexpensive green-energy will stop fossil fuel use.
You make a good point that a country has to obtain a certain standard of living before they can begin to think about being more green. Although in a place like China, you can wind up hammering your standard of living by poisoning the people you are trying to bootstrap up the ladder.
So the question is? Do we generate electricity with coal in a cleaner manner than China? If we do would it not be wiser for US to use that resource rather than sell it to China? I prefer the Nuclear alternatives. That has its negatives and opponents as well. NO alternative known to man currently, is being accepted by all. Every alternative has its group of well meaning opponents.
Well I blame GW for toenail fungus and bad breath. I have no real proof but I do have a "consensus". That's all I need. :P
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS106969+05-Jan-2009+PRN20090105
I will be curious to see if they can actually start construction, how long it will take to build and will they be able to build it without big cost overruns.
To answer one of your questions - "Do we generate electricity with coal in a cleaner manner than China?"
Yes. I did my yearly visit to several coal plants in ND and they keep making improvements. The plants in China on the other hand seem to be rather dirty.
http://www.basinelectric.com/News_Center/News_About_Us/New_chimney_at_Leland_Old- .html
http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/000000000001013060.pdf
Table 6. Top-25 Highest CO2-Emitting Power Plants Worldwide
(Format: Plant City Country Tons of CO2)
* 1 TAICHUNG Lung-Ching Township Taiwan (China) 41,300,000
* 2 PORYONG Poryong-gun South Korea 37,800,000
* 3 CASTLE PEAK Tuen Mun NT China 35,800,000
* 4 REFTINSKAYA SDPP Reftinsky Russia 33,000,000
* 5 TUOKETUO-1 Tuoketuo County China 32,400,000
* 6 MAILIAO FP Mailiao Taiwan (China) 32,400,000
* 7 VINDHYACHAL Sidhi Dist India 29,000,000
* 8 HEKINAN Hekinan Japan 28,900,000
* 9 KENDAL Witbank South Africa 28,600,000
* 10 JANSCHWALDE Peitz Germany 27,400,000
* 11 SURALAYA Serang - Merak Indonesia 27,200,000
* 12 TANGJIN Tangjin-kun South Korea 26,900,000
* 13 MAJUBA Volksrust South Africa 26,500,000
* 14 TAEAN Taean South Korea 26,400,000
* 15 BEILUNGANG Ningbo City China 26,000,000
* 16 WAIGAOQIAO Shanghai Pudong China 26,000,000
* 17 TAISHAN Tongluowan China 26,000,000
* 18 BELCHATOW Belchatow 5 Poland 25,500,000
* 19 MATIMBA Ellisras South Africa 25,500,000
* 20 SCHERER Juliette United States 25,300,000
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071114163448.htm
China's 2030 CO2 Emissions Could Equal the Entire World's Today
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/chinas-2030-co2.html
Changing to CFL bulbs or buying a new 116D BMW (CO2 emissions of 118 g/km) isn't going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.
In light of the above quote, it has been truly amazing (since 2002 that I have been following this) how much effort has gone into "choking" off and containing the diesel CAR population.
Counting ALL of the VWdiesel population in 32 years, selling (Edmunds.com article on 2009 Jetta TDI) 850,000 diesel in the USA market can bearly hit the immeasurable market @ .850/254.1M= .0033451% aka app 1/3 of 1 percent !!!!
A diesel car albeit low number of oems is still in the vanguard of the perfect storm ! The factors making this so, almost guarantee it to be so FAR into the future.
By MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jan 10, 10:44 am ET
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Just to put the whole thing in perspective. The first power plant on the list puts out more CO2 than 6,661,000 VW Jetta TDIs would, if driven the average 15k miles per year. So if we all quit driving ICE vehicles and switched magically to EV would we really cut GHG that much. Those 20 coal plants are about equal to half the cars on our roads in the USA.
Buying CFL bulbs will mainly put a lot of US workers on the street and increase the Chinese GDP. But that is our Congress at work.
Here would be a good question. Do our refrigerators contribute as much to GW as our cars?
How cold would it be without the GW we've already cause?
Personally I'll be putting towels, blankets, and sleeping bags against my windows. Oil, electric heaters, and wood will also be going, as we still don't have enough GW to turn them off.
I'd like to have Al Gore come over and camp out in my yard for a few days, if he lives, and have him tell me how the Earth is too warm.
Stay warm!
Can't wait for Fri. where the forecast is a high of <10F, and much colder at night.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=alpine%2C+ca
In one of the most politically left-of-center cities east of Berkeley, Calif., ideas put forth at city hall in Madison, Wis. would dramatically limit free enterprise and personal liberty, all in the name of environmental sustainability.
Zoning should adapt to meet the demands of climate change; use zoning to address or mitigate effects, or adapt to climate change; remove any barriers to mitigating the effects, adapting to climate change (trees, green space, mobility, renewable energy, land use).
Other proposals throughout the document would push for use of alternative energies (solar, geothermal and wind), conservation, electric cars and urban agriculture. Other more Draconian regulations throughout the document would:
* Limit waterfront development in the name of water sustainability,
* Require two trees to be planted if one is removed from your property
* Limit the “number/density of fast food outlets and drive-through windows” in the name of public health
* Discourage individual parking options to promote public transportation usage
http://businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20090114094613.aspx
http://www.cityofmadison.com/clerk/documents/2008/SustainabilityAg20081210.pdf