The Climate Challenge

[technomage]

Hi People

I found an excellent website on climate change a few days ago

http://www.climatechallenge.gov.uk

It's UK based but the information there would be usefull to anyone. They have also produced some short films on climate change (some of you in the UK would have seen these on TV)



Defra climate change short film

This two minute film is designed to illustrate why climate change is happening, what it will mean and also to inspire people to be part of the solution.

High Bandwidth (http://www.climatechallenge.gov.uk/multimedia/cc_psf5453_120_high.wmv)

Low Bandwidth (http://www.climatechallenge.gov.uk/multimedia/cc_psf5453_120_low.wmv)



I have commited to saving 20% of my energy usage. I am hoping that others on this forum will do the same (if you haven't done so already). :D

[dmantione]

I sometimes wish the computer industry would help us a bit... Modern cpu's, video cards need a lot of power. One can argue wether we need such things, but what about:

* They are making computer cases that draw power when switched off. Not only their power supplies remain active, modern computers keep even the USB and PS/2 devices powered.
* Modern LCD monitors have external power supplies, which draw power when the monitor is switched off and are eliminating the power advantage of LCD by using extra bright lamps.
* Printers nowadays come without power switch.

The above is pure waste, gaining us nothing.

[Nitrogen]

A comment posted on Slashdot intrigued me.
The poster said that he bought a current measuring device and tested all the power outlets in his home.

His PCs power consumption was NOTHING compared to things like the clothes drying machine, washing machine, heaters, and even lights in each room, especially fixtures with multiple lights, they are the REAL energy eaters.

[Robert Kosek]

"Global Warming", "Climate Change"... we only have some 150 years of recorded weather history. 50 years ago everyone was afraid of a "Global Ice Age"! Maybe it's all just part of a natural temperature cycle on the Earth?

Even if the globe heats... who bloody well cares? More heat makes more evaporation, and precipitation/cloud-cover leads to lower temperature. The globe is self-balancing, evidently.


Though what Nitrogen said is true; the computers these days are the least of our worries. Other utilities within our houses draw a lot more power than my 430Watt powersupply does. And I even turn the whole thing off at night, unlike the dishwasher, clothes washer/dryer, etc.

[dmantione]

You have to wash so much clothes that it needs to run 24 hours a day?! :shock: A washing machine can indeed easily pull 3000 watts, but it only does that for a very short time, as soon as the water is heated, it doesn't draw much power any more.

In general heaters consume an awfull lot of power. For example cooking on gas is a much better idea than cooking on electricity.

However, power consumption has increased a lot during the last decade. Computers are widely blamed for it.

[Robert Kosek]

You have to wash so much clothes that it needs to run 24 hours a day?! :shock: A washing machine can indeed easily pull 3000 watts, but it only does that for a very short time, as soon as the water is heated, it doesn't draw much power any more.
Uh, no I don't. :P But if it's running I leave it on. Though I don't typically wash or dry clothes at night!

Computers are blamed for the rise in power consumption, but they aren't making more powerplants either. A nuclear powerplant would solve all California's power problems, but it's illegal to build powerplants there! Morons. It's primarily the cooling costs that are problematic out there.

[technomage]

Wether you believe in global warning or not, I still think that everyone has a responsibility to to "their bit" to keep this planet in one piece. After all for now it's the only one we have.

I would suggest that people watch An Inconvient Truth (http://www.climatecrisis.net/) if you want to see what effect The Industrial Revolution has had on the planet.

My house had no heading for 2 years and we had to run electric heaters in that time. I have in the last 6 month put in gas central heating and cavity wall insulation and switched to low power light bulbs and cut my energy consumption by about 80% :!:

Most people don't need to make big changes to make a difference, replacing your light bulbs with energy savers is a good start, not only will they last longer but they use 1/3 less energy. and you don't have to do it all at once, just one a month.


The globe is self-balancing, evidently.

The globe is self-balancing, which is great if you live in an area where you are well above sea level. I good example of the globe balancing itself is if the ice sheet in green land melts (because of the higher temperature) and floats into the north sea it will probably stop the gulf stream which keeps the vast majority of northern europe warm. The end result would be an ice age in europe, which will problably help bring the global temperature down. That's cool if you live in,say the US or Asia, but it doesn't really help the millions of people in europe.

There are also tempature records going back further that 150 years, ice core's taking in the Artic and Antartic can be used to find out the kind of temperatures that were present when the ice was formed. Again the An Inconvient Truth (http://www.climatecrisis.net/) covers allot of this, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to find out more.

[dmantione]

Yes, I have some diagrams about the reconstructed past temperatures. We are currently in a warm period in the history of the planet. A temperature increase of a few degrees still won't give us abnormal temperatures, prehistorically seen. However, the temperature is increasing at a much faster rate than ever before. Past temperatures changes have resulted in major destructions in ecosystems, allthough the planet has always been able to recover given time.

[Robert Kosek]

No offense meant Dean, but anything put forth by Al Gore and Hollywood gets immediate skepticism from me. Gore is no scientist, nor is Hollywood out for the betterment of society: just check their rather brutal lockdown on "intellectual property" and restrictions in movie usage.

I'm not saying that we should be careless, far from it. Just careful of everyone crying wolf just like they have before. We should be good stewards and care for the planet so it is around for both us and our subsequent generations. I dispute with Gore upon the matter of his 'evidence' though.


There are also tempature records going back further that 150 years, ice core's taking in the Artic and Antartic can be used to find out the kind of temperatures that were present when the ice was formed.Using ice cores is inaccurate. 1: You assume the rate of build up was constant. 2: You assume melting and refreezing was constant. 3: We are unable to witness the entire period that the layers formed within, so we cannot judge the amount of time, temperature, or "kind" of climate involved. The ice in northern and southern regions has been found to accumulate in wildly varying rates, from inches in a year, to many smaller layers. The outright assertion that "we can measure temperature way back", like Gore claims, is completely inaccurate: we can't.

This is like the assertion that the Colorado River formed the Grand Canyon slowly over millions of years. I quote from the National Park online document about the Grand Canyon:
How old is the canyon itself? The early history and evolution of the Colorado River (of which Grand Canyon is only a part) is the most complex aspect of Grand Canyon geology. We know that the erosion which has shaped the canyon has occurred only in the past five to six million years. This is only yesterday, considering the age of the rocks through which the river has carved. No one bothers to look at the land from the side like we can in satellite photography (height measurements, or by surveying) and see that the water ran uphill through a relative mountain range (though it is long and wide, rather than tall and sharp; it is no less significant). Were you to study the Canyon in a macro sense and compared it to a dike or dam that had sprung a leak that began to cut through the sediment, you would find they are nearly identical. Never mind the fact that there is evidence of one to two huge lakes, that existed before the canyon did, running up into Utah and through a good portion of the Rockies. Were they to have raised enough to "trickle" over the dam, the long "hill" the canyon cuts through, it would carve the whole thing in a matter of days. Just look a Spirit Lake at Mount Saint Helens for an example of just what could happen and how swiftly it could act.

Yeah, same scientists. Sorry if I'm a cynic, but they are hardly credible in my eyes. If you're interested I could potentially go on for pages, but no one wants to listen because I, and others, will set the world on its ear if they do. Again, this wasn't meant as a personal attack upon you, but rather against the data you have quoted since it is quite inaccurate.

[cragwolf]

Click on these images to find more images on that topic:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/f/f4/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Temperature_Gallery)

Note the "noisiness" of the data.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/d/d3/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Carbon_Dioxide_Gallery)

Humans may annually produce very little CO2 compare to natural sources (e.g. forest fires, volcanoes), but the cumulative effect of human activity over the past two centuries seems to have raised the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by a significant amount. That's got to be a cause for concern.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Sea_Level_Gallery)

I find it amazing that just 14,000 years ago (or 8,000 years before God created the universe :D ), the sea level was a whopping 100 metres less than it is now. Wow!

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/thumb/3/3a/Muir_Glacier.jpg/350px-Muir_Glacier.jpg (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Glacier_Gallery)

That's a stunningly rapid change. Some people call mountain glaciers the "canaries" of climate change.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/4/43/Solar_Cycle_Variations.png (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Solar_Variation_Gallery)

The Sun exhibits quite a bit of variability, too.

[Robert Kosek]

Only your first diagram is accurate, being based upon measured data. And I'm not talking about projections, guesses, and predictions from "this much x is in y". You cannot guarantee the rate nor amount of anything without being there to measure it.

Where you there? Were any of us there?

As for glaciers melting quickly, how did you measure that? Did they form slowly, quickly, chaotically? I'd like to see you prove it. For all we know, it might be perfectly normal.

Nothing but recorded evidence is factual, those charts are all guesswork that fall apart at the drop of a pin.

I am not arrogant enough to tell God when he created the world or time itself. Until he sees fit to "whisper the answer in my ear" I will continue to estimate to the best of my ability, without the usage of circular reasoning that modern science is so chock full of. So much for "objective research".

[cragwolf]

Using ice cores is inaccurate. 1: You assume the rate of build up was constant. 2: You assume melting and refreezing was constant. 3: We are unable to witness the entire period that the layers formed within, so we cannot judge the amount of time, temperature, or "kind" of climate involved.

I'll say this as politely as I can. From what you've written, it appears that you have little to no knowledge of ice-core science. None of your points are critically relevant to the process of dating ice cores and extracting temperature, CO2 concentration, and other data from them. Revealingly and amusingly, you miss the number one criticism, or the most challenging problem, of ice-core science: contamination. This occurs either from the drilling process or by natural processes (e.g. summer melting, ice flow, underground melting). I'll refrain here from addressing your bizarre Grand Canyon rant.

It's good to be skeptical, but if you base your skepticism on anything other than a thorough and honest study of current scientific knowledge, then you are only contributing to the mass ignorance that causes or exacerbates most of the world's problems. It is a disappointing feature of human psychology that the more ignorant you are about a subject, the more sure you are about your position on that subject. The most uncertain people I have known are scientists, who are reticent and tentative on forming opinions and conclusions in their fields of specialisation. At the other end of the spectrum are politicians, writers, religious people and the common ignorant boob with an internet connection.

[Robert Kosek]

What tires me most is the arrogant scientist who claims that he holds all the cards, when his hypothesis won't even hold water. Darwinism is taught today without question as science, when it was written by a drop out theologian with no scientific background. His entire work behind the concept of evolution was based off the idea that varietals are separate species, when a species clearly includes all varietals capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring.

Tell me how the lost squadron was found beneath some 250 feet of ice for the first bomber?
‘The Lost Squadron’ Life magazine 15(14):60–68, December 1992 and ‘Search for a Fork-Tailed Devil’ Compressed Air Magazine, pp. 30–36, March 1996. How the flag, tent and sledge left at the South Pole by Antarctic explorer Amundsen in 1911 now being 40 feet under the ice?
Salt Lake Tribune, March 19, 1995 p. A12.Or this summary of New Scientist, 139(1809):15, September 11, 1993.
In the frozen wastes of Siberia, an amazing salamander is able to survive in suspended animation for years, deep-frozen at temperatures as low as –50 oC, only to thaw out and run off afterwards. Scientists are not yet sure of the exact mechanism, but, like some other animals, they almost certainly produce ‘anti-freeze’ chemicals to replace water in their tissues and cells.

Some have been found buried in ice which is believed to be from the Pleistocene Age — 12,000 years ago by evolutionary reckoning. Yet they still recovered when thawed out! Though researchers have discussed the idea of radiocarbon dating to test the idea that they could possibly be that old, they say that the creatures ‘probably fell to this depth much later, through deep cracks in the permafrost’.

Whether so or not, the belief that ice layers only 14 metres (46 feet) down are many thousands of years old, in light of the ‘Lost Squadron’ experience, cannot be taken for granted.

I merely quote others in the scientific community, and out of deference to you and this community both I will say no more. Get off your hobby horse, soap box, and take off your 'genius' hat for just five seconds. Perhaps you need to take a deep breath and remember that all the wiles of scientific marvel are nothing when it comes to simple logic; you cannot accurately prove the exact age of the ice without traveling back in time to check your date. You may only guess, which may be educated or not. Regarding your rather offensive remarks towards the nature of my intelligence, beware where you are standing lest you trip and take a hard fall. I have yet to see any concrete proof of any sort, nor flawlessly accurate model of the earth present and past irrespective of age.

Nice to see an opinion taken as such, and shot down like a nuclear missile. Always good to see the boorish are still about.

[cronodragon]

I remember weeks ago I read an article in the newspaper about a scientist that came to my country to talk about the Global Climate Change, and that we could do little about it. I also watched a TV program, I think in National Geographic, talking about how the melting of the poles could stop the climatic mechanism in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that would take us to a mini-ice age (just 1000 years or so). I was sad to me when they said that central america would become a desert... now we have a beautiful rain forest here, and is incredible to image this place becoming a desert :? Looking around, I found this model:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/a/ae/Global_Warming_Predictions_Map.jpg
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Predictions_of_Future_Change_Gallery

It seems that we will get about 8 more celcius degrees, and the worst of all is that this graphic seems to be right for us. Looking at pictures from 50 years ago, people use suits and long dresses, and people said the capital was cold. Indeed, in the 70's and 80's I remember the capital was pretty cold, then in the 90's it got warmer and warmer. We even had a terrible year here, with several crimes related to high temperatures. By the middle of the 90's I had to travel to another province to study at the university, which had a long reputation of being a cold and foggy place... not anymore. I saw myself how the climate of the province changed drastically around 1996 to 1998, and became a sunny and hot place which it still is. This country is very small, and this province receives the air directly from the Atlantic, so I think it's climate should be directly releated to changes in the sea.

[Chesso]

Well her In Australia (Sydney, NSW) it's definitely gotten hotter on average than it once was.

The only place I have been that was anywhere near as hot as it is now and has been for the last few years running is up in Brisbane QLD, which is much nearer to the equator (it's about 7 hours train ride and couple hours bus).

[cragwolf]

Robert, at least you should reference or provide a link to the creationist web page (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/squadron.asp) from which you copied these quotes and mined these stories. That would be a common Christian courtesy, don't you think?

[Chesso]

Does it really matter (is he christian? lol).

I never knew they had laws in the bible about using information from another source without saying where it came from :P.

[cragwolf]

Well it wouldn't be the first time someone expropriated a common courtesy for the cause of Christian morality. :twisted:

[Chesso]

lol.

[cragwolf]

As I recover from this damned cold, I thought I might address the claims from the creationism web page (or its associated magazine) surreptitiously used by Robert. In fact, my job has been made easy because it has mostly been done by someone else:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD410.html

As for the Siberian salamanders, someone needs to learn about the difference between permafrost and ice sheets.

[technomage]

Well her In Australia (Sydney, NSW) it's definitely gotten hotter on average than it once was.


In the uk it's usually very cold this time of year. but the last 10 years is been milder. I was shocked to see a bee collecting polen from a flower yesterday, both the flower and the bee are not usually about until april. On of my collegues at work was up feeding hedgehogs with his daughter the other day, again the hedgehog should have been hybernating.

Make of that what you will :?

[cragwolf]

A really good blog that debunks many of the ignorant and disingenuous claims made against and on behalf of climatology is RealClimate (http://www.realclimate.org/). To learn about the subject in a more structured way, I recommend the American Institute of Physics web site, which has a mini-site devoted to The Discovery of Global Warming (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html). Happy reading and learning.

[Robert Kosek]

Looking back I must laugh at this, since it really has little significance. In determining the future, maybe so, and in the present, sorta. I've been saying conserve energy for years, turn the lights out when you leave the room, etc, and not just for monetary reasons.

I wasn't worried about specifying where I got my information from, cragwolf, since you obviously would heckle it regardless of if I stated it were creationist in origin or not. I've had this argument repeatedly with coworkers, people with Master's Degrees and Ph.D.'s too, and actually fought them into a position of indecision upon the matter. We had some very entertaining and eventful debates over the lunch table, we're quite the multi-national bunch.

You need merely have asked for where I got the information, rather than assume I hid it. I made no effort to hide my tracks whatsoever; I copied the text verbatim. Google or Creative Commons (perhaps) would've located it in the blink of an eye and there you'd be.

It's because of individuals such as yourself, Cragwolf, that I decided not to become a scientist, researcher, or even programmer such as in C++ as I'd have to be (that or Java/C#). Because when the theory (or project) outweighs objectivity to the point that any shred of a clue makes it worthwhile or 'valid', there is nothing I can do to dissuade the illusion. The Church of Darwinism is quite the monster when it comes to stomping out any conflicting sciences, although most frequently the researchers in the forefront of it will actually admit there is no evidence whatsoever supporting their theory.

I don't have the faith required to believe in evolution, Darwinism, or old earth theories. Nor global warming for the time being -- it was quite cold up in Montana when I lived there.

Of course if you live within range of the sea and worry about property damage within the next twenty years, why not move inland, chicken little?

And yes I am so entirely uneducated to forget the side of science known as peer review, or 'double checking', or 'verification'. The Truth Behind An Inconvenient Truth (http://eteam.ncpa.org/commentaries/the-truth-about-al-gores-film-an-inconvenient-truth), courtesy of the NCPA. In point of fact they have an entire category upon Global Warming (http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=global-warming). I don't typically comprehend all of the science behind an idea, but I typically trust private organizations dedicated to reviewing and verifying the various rogue theories out there. You might also check their "Myths of Global Warming (http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html)" article while you're there.

[cragwolf]

Robert, I don't want to speculate on why or how you came to be so willfully ignorant and horribly misinformed about such well-established scientific theories, but you're an adult now, and an intelligent one at that (how else could you design sophisticated algorithms and implement them in Object Pascal?), so there is always a chance that one day you will break off the emotional shackles that tie you down and limit your world view. If that happens, I will be here to recommend some books for your scientific edification.

[technomage]

I don't want this to get into a argument (or personal in any way). You all make some good arguments on wether gloabal warming is happening or not. Not all scientists argee, but that is what science is all about, I'm sure there are people out there who say that Newton's theory of gravity is compelte bolderdash :wink:, but the theory works most of the time so until a better one comes along......

All I will say is this...

whether you believe in the gloabal warming theory or not, we must all acknowledge that it is the responsibility of every person to do their bit to keep this planet in good condition, not only for us but for future generations. Until such time as we are able to sow the seed of humanity to other world this is all we have.

:)

[Chesso]

Just remember guys, atleast someone has to oppose an idea, it won't evolve very far without some conlflict, and if no one challenges it, you might not just not find a better way, and well yeah I'm sure you get my point as I'm not fully sure how to get it across :lol: .

[LP]

Huh, PGD will never change! :lol:

Since nobody seem very enthusiastic about congratulating Pascal winner(s) in TMDC or giving any comments on Asphyre/Lazarus conversion, thought I'd join this discussion... =)


Well, in the past years I've certainly witnessed some weird climatic changes, but there is no mathematical certainty that it is directly caused by Human activity (although in commonsense we could say so - multiple explosions from the warheads here and there during all the wars should've affected the climate in some way).

I personally am skeptical about global warming. Since I've been told by my folks who were(are) physicists/vulcanologists that weather weapons have existed for many years already, why would we contribute the extreme climate changes to a natural phenomena (global warming) and not to be sinthetic (e.g. weather weapons, detonations during warfare, etc.)?

However, I also doubt we would be able to prevent any of climate catastrophes even if we wanted to, considering that to destroy some 400 meter asteroid that might hit Earth, the governments need like 20 years of preparation. Gee, looks like Bruce Willis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_%28film%29) ain't gonna save us after all. :P

I recall when I went to observatory with my father to look on the impact of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoemaker-Levy_9) parts onto the surface of Jupiter. Man, that looked terrible! The entire 143,000 km planet was a mess! We may have the same fate very soon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_MN4), so you guys should not worry about the long term weather effects. :lol:


P.S. That "99942 Apophis" asteroid linked above - check what it means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophis). Cool, isn't it? :)

[cronodragon]

I'm not sure neither about the global warming being real or not. The only time I have seen it to be a real danger was playing Sid Meier's Civilization :lol:

But I can say that today I'm more interested on the topic. I have respiratory allergy problems. I get really bad, specially when I breath dust, and medicines are expensive (imported = +taxes) and their effect temporary. When you have respiratory allergy you can't breath well, you sneeze the whole day, even two or three days constantly, and the nose get's blocked. If you can't breath well you get sleepy, so it gets very hard to think... specially when programming. It's something that really makes your life bad :cry:

Watching another documentary on tv, there was an study about the relation between the destruction of the corals in the Caribbean and respiratory problems in the population of our countries. It seems there is not connection, but incredible as it sounds they found a common cause of those very different problems: the sands of the desert in Africa. They explained how the sands get in the atmosphere and large clouths of dust fall over our lands. :shock: Weeks later I read an article in the newspaper that confirmed me the information of the documentary, a big clouth of dust falled directly over our country. So this is very real, and I feel the effects directly on me. The study revealed that the sands from Sahara come with spores that produce allergies and asthma.

And what makes more sand?? Deforestation! So deforestation in Africa is making us sick. The whole world is connected in one or another way, this is not neoliberal propaganda.

If the global warming alert is just a complot of some scientists for us to stop deforstation, industrial pollution, oil burning, eating pieces of shark, cutting elephants ears or whatever, for me it's a great idea. Hopefully people will get more attention on those problems that affect or will affect everyone.

So to those people in Africa, please, please don't piss in the sand :lol: Joking :P

[Chesso]

That's quite true, even if it isn't fully real or real at all, there's plenty of good reasons to still do these things.

[cragwolf]

It almost goes without saying that the science of climatology is filled with great uncertainties. I am rather agnostic about the subject, particularly when it comes to our abilities to predict the climate with computer modelling, but that's mostly because of my own level of ignorance on the subject. The scientific debate on climate change is currently being won by those scientists who suspect that humans are contributing to the recent observed global warming. They may end up being completely wrong about it, of course. But unless you study the subject in significant detail, your skepticism and opinions on it are practically worthless.

The other debate is the political debate. This is only partly based on science, but also on religion, philosophy, economics, greed, fear and ignorance. This is the debate that you typically see in the popular media, such as newspapers, TV and the internet, and thus it may skew your view of the subject. The political debate generates more heat than light, while the scientific debate generates more light than heat. But both debates are needed. One only wishes that the political debate was as illuminating as the scientific debate.

It is true that conflict is a necessary component of science. But there are real conflicts and there are fake conflicts. The conflict between evolutionary scientists and creationists is fake: creationists are simply deluded nutcases. The conflict between evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould (now deceased) is a real conflict: are genes the only units of natural selection, or can species or even groups of species also play that role? Fake conflicts do not advance the progress of science; indeed, they can hinder it when the nutcases are in positions of power, such as in school boards and the White House. Only real conflicts move science forward.

[Chesso]

Concerning the global climate and what not problems.

It's obvious we are contributing to it, but a better question is, can the earth (or mother nature if you will) itself handle what we have influenced on it, and if it can't, what can we do about it.

Or atleast that's what I think :P.