Whistle blowing on Global Warming

[Chalenge]

Its amazing how humans get all silly about protecting environments when if nature developed an animal that would (for instance) eat rabbits at a crazy rate and this new animal also had no predator that hunted it then rabbits would become extinct and the new animal would feel no remorse... but might start hunting pet cats or something. If we clean out the rain forest and then build neighborhoods (I honestly dont know what is the reason that rainforests are being destroyed) or something then we could also replace the rain forests with more efficient trees. True there might be a few tens of thousands fewer species... but nothing I eat will disappear! 

I heard of a man in Florida back in the late 70s that developed a form of 'jungle rot' that would take any plant matter and reduce it through an enzymatic process into a petroleum base that with very little effort produced fuel. In fact the process he patented could have been used by every household to process leaves and grass clippings into fuel (I think he based his work on wood chips or sawdust). At the time gasoline had just come back down to just more than a buck per gallon and there wasnt any interest in the process. He died of prostate cancer about ten years later but his family still holds the patent. Im wondering if they licensed the process to Brazil or something?

[Angus]

This is another 'warmer' myth. Rain forests are not efficient carbon scrubbers unlike pine and northern deciduous forests which have something on the order of 50 times the storage capabilities of rain forests on a per hectare basis.

WOOT? Source please??? And why have they been dubbed "the lungs of the earth"??? How does that add up to the difference in crops on colder vs warmer areas????

Amyway, they're being cut down, and burned down for one reason only. MONEY.
Cutting is for lumber. Burning is to access the soil for crops. The soil is VERY rich, allowing several years of good crops before the nutrition in the soil is depleted. Then you just burn some more. This is human nature, - if there is unlimited access to a limited source, the show will go on untill there is very little left. Good example, the American Bison in the 19th century. Getting butchered from a population of several millions down to a few hundred.
Same goes for Carbon. We will argue and squabble about the effects without sacrificing much of our comfort in order to really do something. We miss the main point, we will deplete the source one day. So in that sence all that GW-CO2 discussion is good, for it will encourage work on alternative energy sources way before the market will.

[cpxxx]

So in that sence all that GW-CO2 discussion is good, for it will encourage work on alternative energy sources way before the market will.

Are you wavering Angus?

I would agree on that point. Whatever your view on global warming. It is stirring up ideas on possible alternatives to fossil fuels which is good. On the other hand I think the overemphasis on global warming is pushing research up blind alleys. One of the worst and most useless ideas are wind turbines and carbon trading to name but two.

I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan's famous 'Star Wars', SDI project of the eighties. It was completely mythical and was never believed by anyone except the possibly the Russians, the public and maybe Reagan himself. But all kinds of scientists snapped up the research grants and came up with many great ideas which eventually had practical uses. Hopefully something similar will happen out of AGW, a positive out of a negative.

I do believe the the loss of rainforests and other environmental damage is actually more serious than the so called dangers of global warming. But again those real dangers are lost in the panic caused by AGW mongers.

[Chalenge]

No no no... I can see the decades have retold the story...

Bison were killed by idiots just because they had a gun and you could see the buffalo from the railroad car. Buffalo didnt fear much and when railroads came along even that didnt scare them. Then also men would come from as far as Europe just to shoot buffalo as a test of marksmanship. One travel agency in England offered it as an adventure as a rite of passage into manhood.

In 1869 a herd held up a Kansas Pacific railroad for nine hours as a buffalo herd crossed the tracks. The head count on that herd alone exceeded three-million by the railroads estimates and they wanted the buffalo gone but it was reckless idiots that performed the act and not under corporate direction. The buffalo were not butchered for meat they were merely killed and left to rot by careless fools of the time.

Now if farmers in the cleared jungle areas misuse the soil they fall under the same category (careless fools) but there are methods available to replenish the soil through crop rotations.

Sorry I cant find the article I was reading in jungle forests and carbon storage (Abu Bakar, Malaysia) but he estimated 20 tons per hectare for the jungles of Malaysia versus 1000 tons per hectare of northern deciduous/pine (woodland) forest. Even the equatorial jungles only rate a maximum of 320 tons per hectare and a median of about 212 tons. But the point is that nature provides already for the natural occurance of this gas and that mans contribution is miniscule by comparison AND why is the U.S. or Britain being taxed and forced to pay for a problem of jungle harvest in South America? Instead of taxing us just embargo them!

[Angus]

The lungs of the earth were related to South America, and that is where the numbers are biggest.
What they leave behind after the jungle is gone does not bind much carbon at all. Crop rotation COULD be executed by replanting trees for instance, but who is ready to pay more for the coffee for that?????
One routine: Burn the jungle (releasing all the Carbon tied up in the biomass into the atmosphere), grow coffee until the soil is not fertile enough, then use the land as long as possible for grazing cattle. Cheap coffe and cheap beef.
I am not wavering BTW. My view on the whole GW is maybe a little aside from the mainstream (which is "GW is happening and its because of the CO2"). Mine is simply that we are experiencing a warming climate, and a lot of things we humans to affect the climate in exactly that direction. Modest, ain't I? And I am not fond of the carbon quota idea at all. BTW, much of the carbon released gets tied up in the oceans. As they warm up, there can be a huge spike in CO2 when it gets released (less saturation). So, we're only beginning to see things.
Now, to alternative energy....
I completely disagree about wind turbines being useless. Its just that they do not solve the whole problem.
Wind energy is unstable, and therefor difficult to keep in a power grid. However, if it can be stored like by heating water, as well as being used on systems that can take some fluctuations, it is just fine. I am well into this, since I am working on a project of testing out some few units of small turbines (3.5-5kw) on farms. The idea is to run the boiler on wind power alone, the water in the boiler being the "battery" so to speak. Those small turbines are not that expensive, - if they can be financed with low intrest rates they are completely compeatable to any powergrid price. (That is why I am doing it). I am however not so keen on those huge ones. It means many big units and a lot of fuss when something breaks.
And to Bisons....which were my example on how far humans will go in their depleting business....
Bisons in N-America were mostly wiped out because of the fur. Some meat and bones were also used. From god-knows-how-many-millions of them down to a few hundred in mere decades. It did not spoil the party that the railroad business also wanted to get rid of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bison#19th_century_bison_hunts
No hijack, but cannot resist posting this one:


I could also mention the worldwide overfishing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_cod#Northwest_Atlantic_cod

It is the same everywhere, main rule applies. Unlimited access to a limited resource will lead to depletion....

[cpxxx]

I am working on a project of testing out some few units of small turbines (3.5-5kw) on farms.

No problem with those, an excellent idea and something I would use myself if I lived in the countryside.

I do have a big problem with the windfarms. They've sprung up around the countryside here. I wonder at their real utility. One of the more scary ideas someone came up with lately was this http://www.spiritofireland.org/

An insane idea to cover the countryside in windfarms store the energy in artificial seawater lakes in the valleys of Connemara and then release the water when the wind can't take up the slack. They suggest that only 1% of the countryside would need to be covered by wind farms but critics have pointed the figure is closer to 3.5% of the total land area of the Republic of Ireland. The whole of the west of Ireland would be covered in these bloody windmills. Look at that glossy website, pure fantasy.

The problem is that it's been taken seriously in some circles and to me typifies the utter distortion this whole AGW thing has produced. Effectively this would be a man made environmental disaster all in the name 'green' energy.

Fortunately the likelyhood of it ever happening is small, we're not very good at macro projects in this country. We have only just managed to link the east and west coasts by motorway. Actually we haven't yet, it opens tomorrow. We're well into 20th century developments, 21st century developments have to wait for a few years yet.

[Sonicblu]

While we are at it lets get rid of Dyhydrogenmonoxied. It kills thousands everyday. Its one of the most dangerous things on earth

Climate change is the new movement of the day. These Climate change guys are making a fortune.
One reason alternative energy will not happen in our lives, is they don't want it too. They say on one hand lets do it to create jobs. Then on the other hand the say it will hurt the environment.

We have a 300 million dollar hybrid alternative energy plant proposed here. Sounds great. Then the EPA steps in an halts it indefinitely because putting it up will harm the environment. And it only covers 900 acres of land. Every project that has been proposed in our area has been stopped by environmentalist. From Vertical maglev wind generators to solar electric.

Just follow the money.

[RTHolmes]

While we are at it lets get rid of Dyhydrogenmonoxied.

Penn & Teller

[Vulcan]

(Image removed from quote.)

Question moray, is that the same CRU data which was adjusted, and there are no original records for? And what is the margin for error on that .5 degree C temperature rise over 60 years?

[33Vortex]

Why not get rid of snow? It kills thousands of people worldwide every year in traffic accidents and freezing temperatures. It should be abolished because it's a threat to all life on the planet. We could fine everyone who let snow fall on their property as it's a danger to all of us.

Not a good idea?  

[Kev367th]

It's all starting to unravel.

Russian think tank accuses UK Met Office of cherry picking the data sent to them.
Met Office used only 25% of the data sent to them and used mostly data from urban centres.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElPunkm1zYQ

[SirFrancis]

A leading Russian think-tank claims the British meteorological office has been misrepresenting Russian weather data to manipulate the results and suggest rising temperature trends. The Moscow Institute of Economic Analysis alleges the Hadley Center for Climate Change used only a quarter of the data provided by Russia. Analysts for the agency imply that climate experts selectively used incomplete reporting that emphasized a warming effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElPunkm1zYQ

Regards
SF

[Angus]

If those guys cherry-picked data, they're bloody fools.
If they random picked or just picked a % (old data in russian format could be a pain to register), the guy is still having his minutes of glory, and possibly a well paid job in "the other" camp.
 

[MORAY37]

A leading Russian think-tank claims the British meteorological office has been misrepresenting Russian weather data to manipulate the results and suggest rising temperature trends. The Moscow Institute of Economic Analysis alleges the Hadley Center for Climate Change used only a quarter of the data provided by Russia. Analysts for the agency imply that climate experts selectively used incomplete reporting that emphasized a warming effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElPunkm1zYQ

Regards
SF

That's hilarious.  Especially since the stations (121, in RED) that the Russian Institute of ECONOMIC Analysis are complaining about, actually undercut the warming shown by the worldwide stations. (476 stations, in blue)



AGAIN.... Institute for ECONOMIC analysis.
Keep trying...but, you'll only see what you want to see.  You don't even look at the data, you let some Russian do the thinking for you.

Press Release

The World Meteorological Organisation chooses the set of stations designated as essential climate stations that have been released by the Met Office. These are evenly distributed across the globe and provide a fair representation of changes in global average temperature over land. We do not choose these stations and therefore it is impossible for the Met Office to fix the data.

The global temperatures record, HadCRUT has been shown to underestimate the rise in global average temperatures over the past 30 years when compared against a fuller analysis of global temperatures. This analysis includes information from a wide range of sources such as satellites, radiosondes, and sea surface temperature data, but does not include surface observations used in HadCRUT, so is fully independent.

The analysis shows that HadCRUT under-estimates the warming in the Russian region, in particular, because of the limited availability of Northern Hemisphere high latitude observations. The Met Office is keen to publish all underpinning station data as it becomes available. We are already in the process of seeking agreement to release the underpinning data from its owners.

[Viperius]