Global Warming

[ken_behrendt]

terry wrote:

The models were made by humans to produce these forecasts.

If that was the case, then the models would not be making forecasts!

Those models are based upon past established laws of physics and atmospherics and they are not formulated so as to predict any particular result for the Earth's future climate.

All molecules lose heat and only 'stay' warm by recieving as much as they lose.

Actually, CO2 is an excellent absorber and emitter of IR radiation and interacts better with it because of its chemical bonds than the other various gases in our atmosphere.

What happens is that, when the CO2 molecule absorbs IR radiation, its various molecular bonds begin undergoing vibrational and rotation motion and they then rise to higher quantized molecular energy levels. However, before they can de-excite and again emit the IR radiation, the CO2 molecules collide with other gas molecules in the atmosphere and pass their stored energy on to them which then increases their kinetic energy a bit. As the total kinetic energy of all of the gas atoms and molecules in the atmosphere rises, so does its thermal energy or heat content.

The problem with a mixture of gases in which CO2 is only a small part is that the mixture will tend to absorb IR radiation slightly faster than it will emit it. It's a small effect, but it is, apparently, causing our planet's atmosphere to heat up by small amounts over the years.

The problem can be solved in the long run if we can just begin to start limiting how much CO2 is in the atmosphere. And, this will require us to begin burning less carbon containing fossil fuels in the coming years.


ken

[terry5732]

Dude!!
Sounds like you're saying CO2 is a perpetual heat producer !!

Heat one molecule and it will heat them all up?
Heat gained from nowhere?
If a molecule loses heat, it has lost heat.
Absorb and emit = transparent.
You can't have it both ways.

Bogus
Bunk
Junk 'science'

The hype is about government grant money period - among scientists
Amongst the greenies it's about wanting everyone else to live like neandrothals - they still want there modern niceties

Low CO2 in ice cores most likely indicates lush plant growth at the time the ice was laid due to a higher global temperature and plant growth for longer periods over more of Earths surface. We have been cool for some time. Normal is warmer. We are going towards normal. Both poles are currently deserts. This is because it is too cool presently to precipitate moisture there. When the Earth warms (as it has in the past) and there is precip again at the poles, it will accumulate into large glaciers.

[jim_mich]

Sound like James Lovelock's Gaia theory where the Earth acts like a living organism. A rising C02 produces a warmer climate with more vegetation and plankton which consumes more CO2 and everything comes back into balance. It's self regulating!

[ken_behrendt]

terry wrote:

Heat one molecule and it will heat them all up?
Heat gained from nowhere?

I think of it this way. The small percentage of Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (about 1% of the particles present) absorbs IR radiation and these molecules begin to vibrate and rotate with increased energy. This energy, however, is mostly not re-radiated as IR radiation, but, rather, used to increase the kinetic energies, via collisions, of the remaining non-Greenhouse gases.

Of course, this process is reversible: the warmer non-Greenhouse gases can collide with the Greenhouse gas molecules, excite them, and then the latter can emit IR radiation. But, the point is that, although reversible, the process is not balanced. Apparently a bit less energy is returned to the Greenhouse gas molecules by the non-Greenhouse gas molecules than is received from the Greenhouse gas molecules by the non-Greenhouse gas molecules. It is this slight imbalance that is causing the Global Warming that we are starting to hear discussed more frequency these days.

The hype is about government grant money period - among scientists
Amongst the greenies it's about wanting everyone else to live like neandrothals - they still want there modern niceties

Well, I am trying to avoid the conspiratorial aspect to this issue. To monitor this situation and make scientifically valid recommendations is going to cost taxpayers some money. But, I think it will be worth it in the long run if it can help enhance life of Earth and lead to a cleaner and healthier environment.


Jim wrote:

A rising C02 produces a warmer climate with more vegetation and plankton which consumes more CO2 and everything comes back into balance. It's self regulating!

That is the BIG question on everybody's mind...is this process "self-regulating" and soon to automatically stop or does it have the potential to turn into a catastrophy for life on Earth if nothing is done to halt the process?

I have heard some claim that there is the risk of a "runaway" Greenhouse effect occurring. In this scenario, the atmosphere heats up to, maybe, 130 °F and our weather goes into a state of chaos as far as extremes are concerned. Widespread global flooding and desertification set in and all land plant life is destroyed. The decay and wildfire combustion of that vegetation then releashes more CO2 into the atmosphere which then begins to trap even more of the Sun's incoming IR radiation. Maybe this causes average atmospheric surface temperatures to reach up to about 180 °F as all remaining life on Earth is destroyed.

Perhaps, years after such a calamity, an approaching extraterrestrial mother ship will enter our Solar system and then conclude that there are no life bearing terrestrial planets here. The first planet, what past humanity used to call Mercury is, as always a scorched moon, the next two planets, Venus and Earth, will appear almost identical from space and be enshrouded in a dense layer of cloudy atmosphere. Finally, they will note the small red planet, Mars, and conclude that it is probably the only one truly suitable for a space base or colony...


ken

[MrTim]

I believe the one factor being overlooked as the cause of "global warming" is the Sun itself. Any slight increase in solar activity will have a greater impact on "global warming" than all the claims of CO2 being produced by human activity.
If you really must worry about "global warming", I'd suggest investing in a wide-brimmed hat, really good sunglasses, and some sunblock.... ;)

[winkle]

let me have 60 gallons of high test gas and a small bottle of sunblock

doing my part for the earth

[Joel Wright]

EXXON Admits recognizing green house gases,Thats good enough for me.
Environmentalists lash out at Exxon
Activist group fighting for clean fuel alternatives to help stop global warming accuses Exxon of putting profits before the environment.
By Keisha Lamothe, CNNMoney.com contributing writer
July 27 2006: 7:18 PM EDT


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil was accused of putting the bottom line ahead of environmental concerns on the day the oil behemoth announced its second best quarterly profit ever.

The activist group, Exxpose Exxon, dedicated to informing and educating people about Exxon (Charts) Mobil's efforts to prevent action on global warming, said the company will continue to break records until consumers are given energy alternatives, during a conference call Thursday.

Surging oil prices helped the No. 1 U.S. oil company post a near record high of $10.4 billion in the second quarter almost reaching the record high of $10.7 billion last year.

Exxpose Exxon, a coalition of some of the nation's largest environmental and public interest advocacy organizations, says the company has repeatedly questioned the seriousness of global warming and actively opposes efforts to cut global warming pollution.

"Exxon wants to preserve [its] market by not doing anything about global warming," said Shawnee Hoover, campaign director, on the conference call.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
However, an Exxon Mobil spokesperson told CNNMoney.com that it recognizes the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere poses risks which may prove significant for society and the Earth's ecosystem and says the company is taking action to address these risks.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
But Exxon also said that investing in renewable energy technologies, apart from ethanol, is not part of its plan.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"There are very few [renewable energy resources] that are economical without subsidies," said Henry Hubble, vice president for investor relations, on a conference call Thursday. "We don't think it makes sense to invest in it at this point."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
July marks the first full year of the Exxpose Exxon campaign, and the group says its membership has grown to 500,000 since January.


"There's a giant sitting in the middle of the road that needs to be moved," said Cert Davies, research director of Green peace. "Exxon, being the giant."

----------------------------------------

Related: Exxon Mobil makes over $10 billion

[ken_behrendt]

Yes, the petroleum industry is in a rather uncomfortable position now that Global Warming is starting to get media attention and gather momentum as, possibly, being "the" defining issue of the 21st century.

On the one hand, Exxon-Mobile is now making about a billion USD per day in profit because of the increased cost of oil on the world markets. Yet, on the other hand, they want to look as responsible and "Green" as possible which requires them to start discouraging people from using their products which are the source of their stockholders' income.

Don't think that alternative energy does not scare the hell out of them. They've been watching what new technologies have done to old ones during the last century and know that if something comes along that they are not intimately involved in providing, then they will, eventually, wind up being downsized into oblivion.

Expect to see a hydrogen technology being pushed which will use fossil fuels instead of water as a source of the hydrogen. We'll be told that obtaining the reactive hydrogen from fossil fuels makes more "sense" from a cost point of view (and will not, of course, negatively affect their corporate revenues) and that we should not worry about what is happening to all of that carbon being removed from the hydrocarbons in the process of extracting the hydrogen.

Maybe we'll be told that the carbon will, like radioactive waste, be buried and can then be considered safe. Decades later, we'll probably find out that it was sold to Third World countries for fuel and it wound up in our ever increasingly warmer atmosphere anyway!


ken

[terry5732]

Where do you get a billion per day?! Their entire profit for the quarter (3 months) was 10 billion. This is a small percentage of the product sold. During this period I didn't see any gas stations with "no gas today" signs. During the same period the US government took in a trillion dollars and didn't deliver on it's constitutional requirements - stopping foreign invasion, mail service. Yes the CEO does look like he overeats a great deal, but there are poor fat people too.

[winkle]

Ken

i belive i saw reported somewhere they only made 80 million a day

[ken_behrendt]

terry and winkle...

I think I heard that figure of a billion USD per day on some news program. Maybe I heard it wrong or the reporter was in error?


In any event, I fully expect Earth's transition to non-carbon emitting forms of energy to be a slow and painful one. Corporations will try to downplay the effects of Global Warming as long as possible and keep maximizing their profits off of the extraction, refining, and distribution of fossil fuels.

However, this is also an excellent time for the emergence of small "cottage industry" type producers of alternative energy solutions. Thus, in the coming years we will see a lot of technical innovations made in the fields of solar and wind power generation technology. It's already starting to show up here and there as individual environmentally concerned citizens begin to modify their homes to be more energy efficient and, on still a very small scale, generate their own electrical power.

If there was ever a good time in history for the introduction of genuine free energy devices, then this is it...



ken

[Michael]

There's an interesting theory that came by way of a woman who had a dream and reported it on the coast to coast radio show. She said she drempt that the reason the earth was heating up was do to taking oil out from the earth, since oil acts as a coolant.

[MrTim]

If "global warming" bothers people so much, then they need to take the two easiest steps to combat it:
Plant trees and eat lots of steak.
Trees will convert the CO2 into usable byproducts, and also provide shade.
Doing your part by eating a cow will reduce Bovine Methane Emissions, which is a far greater threat than "human-produced" CO2. Studies have shown that livestock are responsible for producing yearly up to 14% of the atmospheric CO2 contributing to "global warming".
It's a good thing that the billions of buffalo were slaughtered on the American Plains 120 years ago, otherwise the huge amounts of methane they would have produced would have ignited the atmosphere when the first atomic bombs were tested.

If you are getting the idea that I don't take the farce of "global warming" seriously, then you are correct. From the political and scientific agendas, to the "Kyoto" treaty, it's all just a money-making scheme based on fear-mongering. Quit worrying about it so much. I'm not going to.
In fact, I think I'll have steak tonight.... ;)

[terry5732]

Nooooooooooo

Trees bad !
Termites eat them and fart
Methane is bad greenhouse gas
There are 5 billion tons of termites already on Earth
No more trees !

I'm pretty confident the cattle population doesn't weigh 5 billion tons

[ovyyus]

I suspect that even if all life was somehow removed from the face of the Earth then it would still heat up and cool down in cycles governed by solar fluctuations. Adapt or die - stability is just a dream :P