Global Warming | Fact or Fiction?

[Alceste]

No, I blame our own country. To be fair, you brought up Germany. If we want to have high wages and superior products and afford social services like Germany does, we would need to adopt their policies as well.

The world is a mess because there is no leadership.

Becoming part of the global economy is a big mistake.

Germany is strong, but they would be even stronger if they kept their D-mark and stayed out of the European union.

That's a wildly illogical argument. When you see your neighbour clean his gutters, do you think "Oh, that reminds me, I should do mine pretty soon" or do you think "Meh - there's no point cleaning my gutters - I would have to knock down the entire house and rebuild it EXACTLY THE SAME as my neighbour's house, right down to the tiniest detail, THEN maybe I could think about cleaning the gutters"?

 

[painted wolf]

Sure, the natural way is almost always best. But doesn't making furniture also help by keeping the carbon out of the atmosphere? My point is that some lumber industry is ok for the environment.

Absolutely!

My point was that if your want to take an extreme position on the cutting of trees due to carbon impact... you should be cutting huge numbers of trees and leaving them to decay.

But that's a silly position to take... just like the "never cut a tree" position is.

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Absolutely!

My point was that if your want to take an extreme position on the cutting of trees due to carbon impact... you should be cutting huge numbers of trees and leaving them to decay.

But that's a silly position to take... just like the "never cut a tree" position is.

wa:do

Cool. I've been up to Mt. St. Helens and seen the devistation there. They are leaving everything as it is to study the return of life. It's eerie. Both death and new life represented. Really makes you feel small. I would love to see it again in 100 years just to see the difference.

 

[Alceste]

Cool. I've been up to Mt. St. Helens and seen the devistation there. They are leaving everything as it is to study the return of life. It's eerie. Both death and new life represented. Really makes you feel small. I would love to see it again in 100 years just to see the difference.

I saw that on Pacaya in Guatemala - it was amazing. The volcano erupts every decade or two and the flow is always shifting. Because of that, we hiked through more-or-less pristine forest and 3 or 4 very different stages of regrowth, then Mordor.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I saw that on Pacaya in Guatemala - it was amazing. The volcano erupts every decade or two and the flow is always shifting. Because of that, we hiked through more-or-less pristine forest and 3 or 4 very different stages of regrowth, then Mordor.

Very cool. Was the devistation similar to St. Helens? I'm not familiar with Pacaya so I don't know how violent the eruptions are.

 

[painted wolf]

Cool. I've been up to Mt. St. Helens and seen the devistation there. They are leaving everything as it is to study the return of life. It's eerie. Both death and new life represented. Really makes you feel small. I would love to see it again in 100 years just to see the difference.

It's amazing to see how life recolonizes what could easily be dismissed as lifeless landscape.

It's also amazing to see just how long that process takes... diversity is very slow to recover.

wa:do

 

[Reverend Rick]

It's amazing to see how life recolonizes what could easily be dismissed as lifeless landscape.

It's also amazing to see just how long that process takes... diversity is very slow to recover.

wa:do

I remember a forest fire in Florida back in the 80's. The landscape looked like the moon's surface after the fire. I was so sad about this, the land was scorced black and barren. If you go by there now, you would never know there was a fire ever.

 

[work in progress]

I would, not that it would matter much as even I don't expect to be here then. Personally I think the evidence suggests that given enough time, life would return but as you said, its anybodys guess.

I'll leave it at that, and go with a more cautionary perspective that we can't assume there would be a new flourishing of life afterwards. I've mentioned paleontologist - Peter Ward a number of times already....likely because I've read three of his books in recent years, and Ward makes a good point that there is at least as strong a case to make that the Earth is hostile to life, as there is that Earth is trying to support and encourage life.

Not sure why you brought up Knoxville but since you did. I happened to be traveling to Knoxville on business a couple weeks after the shooting. The children in my UU Church in Houston had me take a canvas with their palm prints on it to give to the kids in Knoxville. I find it very strange that you would suggest that southern liberals are somehow less than northern liberals. They certainly feel pain the same.

Maybe it wasn't the best analogy to use, but I recalled that there had been other attempted shooters stopped since then, as well as many anonymous threats directed at Unitarian churches. So, whether there are differences between north and south, Unitarians are still perceived as too liberal wherever they are.

I think that the people like Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly, who wrote books which inspired the shooters, should have received more focus than they got for inciting others to violence.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Maybe it wasn't the best analogy to use, but I recalled that there had been other attempted shooters stopped since then, as well as many anonymous threats directed at Unitarian churches. So, whether there are differences between north and south, Unitarians are still perceived as too liberal wherever they are.

I love the people at our local Unitarian Church. The thing I like best is their openness to diversity.

The south gets a bad rap many times. Some of it is deserved, but is not generalised everywhere as many people portray the south.

 

[work in progress]

It's definitely a problem.

The good thing about it though is that once you have the solar and wind plants up, the rare earth minerials can be recycled from old panels and generators into newer ones as needed.

The big problem with rare earth minerals is that we are a use and dispose society... we should be recycling technology and reclaiming the rare mineral components. Our landfills are already a treasure trove of metals like copper, tin, gold and so on.

Right now, we could be doing a lot more to provide incentives for recycling many of these elements which are used in making computers and wireless devices. But if production of windmills and solar panels really takes off, I'm concerned about the environmental aspects of developing rare earths. The extraction of resources, whether oil or metals, always starts first with the low-hanging fruit, which is the cheapest and easiest to extract. As the development continues, energy-return-on-energy-invested EROEI starts to become a factor. The increase in EROEI in oil extraction and production, is one of the major reasons why carbon production is rising in the midst of a worldwide recession. If the same factors exist in producing renewable technologies, it becomes a matter of necessity to reduce energy consumption, rather than just replace coal-fired generating stations with windmills and solar panels.

Of couse it's not that simple... but it's a vital step. Unless we replace carbon as our only significant energy source then that dog eat dog you mention will come all the sooner.

wa:do

I suppose something is better than nothing. But, I've noticed over the last couple of years that bloggers on the left are getting sick and tired of all of the "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" attempts by so called moderates to just apply a few tweaks and adjustments to a corrupt and failing economic system. I think much the same thing applies in environment issues.

Some "green" proposals like carbon offsets are worse than doing nothing at all, since new trees planted are not compensating for carbon added to the atmosphere; and many of those trees are planted in subtropical zones where locals are evicted off their land so some foreign multinational can plant a few trees and use it a chit to play in determining the company's carbon footprint.

 

[Alceste]

Very cool. Was the devistation similar to St. Helens? I'm not familiar with Pacaya so I don't know how violent the eruptions are.

They're not "Mount St Helens" violent, but they're dramatic enough. A week after we left Guatemala it blew again, shutting down the airport and requiring the evacuation of several nearby villages. While we we there we climbed to the top and peered down into the caldera - it was bubbling and spewing, and there was a red river of molten lava flowing down the other side of the mountain. Stank like heck too.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

They're not "Mount St Helens" violent, but they're dramatic enough. A week after we left Guatemala it blew again, shutting down the airport and requiring the evacuation of several nearby villages. While we we there we climbed to the top and peered down into the caldera - it was bubbling and spewing, and there was a red river of molten lava flowing down the other side of the mountain. Stank like heck too.

I'm green with envy!

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I'll leave it at that, and go with a more cautionary perspective that we can't assume there would be a new flourishing of life afterwards.

In the end it doesn't matter. It is our current ecosystem that supports us that is in danger and it is we who are in danger. If we focus on that then the planet should be fine, even if only by default.

I think that the people like Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly, who wrote books which inspired the shooters, should have received more focus than they got for inciting others to violence.

Crazy people can be inspired by anyone or anything. Hold those who provided the inspiration is a slippery slope indeed. Its like blaming the dog for Son of Sam's killings.

 

[painted wolf]

Right now, we could be doing a lot more to provide incentives for recycling many of these elements which are used in making computers and wireless devices. But if production of windmills and solar panels really takes off, I'm concerned about the environmental aspects of developing rare earths. The extraction of resources, whether oil or metals, always starts first with the low-hanging fruit, which is the cheapest and easiest to extract. As the development continues, energy-return-on-energy-invested EROEI starts to become a factor. The increase in EROEI in oil extraction and production, is one of the major reasons why carbon production is rising in the midst of a worldwide recession. If the same factors exist in producing renewable technologies, it becomes a matter of necessity to reduce energy consumption, rather than just replace coal-fired generating stations with windmills and solar panels.

Energy use reduction is obviously an important part of moving forward... and programs like Energy Star have made significant gains in reducing our use of energy.

I suppose something is better than nothing. But, I've noticed over the last couple of years that bloggers on the left are getting sick and tired of all of the "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" attempts by so called moderates to just apply a few tweaks and adjustments to a corrupt and failing economic system. I think much the same thing applies in environment issues.

Still, we will get nowhere if we can't convince both sides to do something. Perfection is impossible, but good can be improved on later.

Some "green" proposals like carbon offsets are worse than doing nothing at all, since new trees planted are not compensating for carbon added to the atmosphere; and many of those trees are planted in subtropical zones where locals are evicted off their land so some foreign multinational can plant a few trees and use it a chit to play in determining the company's carbon footprint.

Is that a problem with the idea of offsets or with the application.
Either way, it's going to take a lot of different tactics to get us to where we need to be. There isn't a single solution to the problem.

wa:do

 

[Thief]

I hesitate saying this because it's likely to be taken out of context but what the hell.

Deforestation is bad, yes it is. But, cutting down trees isn't necessarily bad for the environment. In the Amazon where they cut down rain forest and then burn it they are taking all the carbon in the trees and releasing it back into the atmosphere. This is bad for the environment of course.

But what about cutting down trees in the US for paper and furnature? You see, trees are vast storehouse of carbon, the suck it out of the atmosphere and store it. But as a tree grows its intack of carbon slows. Younger trees take more carbon out of the atmosphere. Now when you cut a tree down and make something out of it, what happens to the carbon? It stays in the wood. So if you plant trees, allow them to mature, cut them down and make something out of them, then plant more trees in their place, guess what? You are helping to scrub more carbon out of the atmosphere.

So, deforestation is bad, but logging of timber in already deforested land is good so long as new trees are planted.

Yeah I know the drill....

Recently someone invented a 'scrubber' to do exactly what tress do.

I thought it rather notable the invention strongly resembles the branch and leaves of a fir tree.

The replacement rate is too slow.
A sampling today will not mature for 80 years.
The old growth of 400years will be gone in twenty.

The jest of it is simple.
Leave the tress alone. They are the only practical scrubbers we have.

The next trick will be getting off of fossil fuel....quick.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

The replacement rate is too slow.
A sampling today will not mature for 80 years.
The old growth of 400years will be gone in twenty.

Nope. Mostly I'm talking about timber grown for the paper industry. Pine grows fast and its harvested then replanted. The trees are turned into paper which holds the carbon. Some go into pine furniture. This is a cyclic system which is self sustaining.

As for old growth, I'm against logging it mostly because I love trees and a truly old forest is just too cool to cut. But when it comes to carbon, you would scrub more from the atmosphere if you cut the old growth and planted new. Old growth trees don't scrub near as much as new growth does. But as I said, I prefer to keep the old growth trees. As for the acres and acres of pines planted by the paper company, I say keep on cutting.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

First, thank you to all the posters.
Alceste has my vote for ideas in motion. I would love to buy some land and build an earth ship, be completely, as much as possible, off the grid. Raise/farm your own food and enjoy the simple and abundant pleasures of life.

This fragile life, the one we have that, A Work In Progress and Painted Wolf, so diligently and eloquently describe; we must take care.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

Not to make this a pot thread but hemp is an undervalued resource.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Not to make this a pot thread but hemp is an undervalued resource.

It's possible that hemp could replace trees in the manufacturing of paper. Also it can replace certian petroleum products. I wouldn't say that hemp production would save the planet on its own but it certainly could have an impact.

 

[Alceste]

First, thank you to all the posters.
Alceste has my vote for ideas in motion. I would love to buy some land and build an earth ship, be completely, as much as possible, off the grid. Raise/farm your own food and enjoy the simple and abundant pleasures of life.

This fragile life, the one we have that, A Work In Progress and Painted Wolf, so diligently and eloquently describe; we must take care.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.