Is global warming bad?

[WoodPeckr]

My largest concern with H2 is containment.

The same was said about gasoline tanks in cars when first invented! The Horse farming industry wanted nothing to do with that 'horseless carriage.'

 

[papasmerf]

Personaly I am for the elecrtic with generators

No need to buy fuel for the most part
create a car that is self charging and diverts power to motors as needed


Why buy fuel?

 

[WoodPeckr]

Personaly I am for the elecrtic with generators

No need to buy fuel for the most part
create a car that is self charging and diverts power to motors as needed


Why buy fuel?

That's the beauty of the pure H2, fuel cell.....it runs on water!

 

[WoodPeckr]

That's the beauty of the pure H2, fuel cell.....it runs on water!

GM, General Motors right now is working on Fuel Cells that can be placed in your house that will provide you with all your heat & electric.....no more utilities either!

 

[WoodPeckr]

where can i find one?

They exist in theory, haven't been perfected yet.....BIG OIL killed their funds!

 

[WoodPeckr]

GM should focus on improving their cars instead of doing something they are incapable of.

At this stage of development a fuel cell for your house is easier to build than one for a vehicle.

Here is a GM link:

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/index.html

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/500_stationary/index.html

 

[Asterix]

Back to my earlier point which papasmerf has also alluded to; the development of new fuel technology, though a necessary and good thing, will not in and of itself reduce worldwide oil consumption. The developing countries will more than take up the slack. Countries that can't afford to switch over to new machines, whether for transportation or industry, will continue to be dependent on oil until the price becomes exorbinant. Vehicles and machinery no longer needed by the developed countries will sold to others. Even if hydrogen cell technology was perfected tomorrow, oil consumption will continue to rise until the price becomes too great, or until we finally run out.

 

[KBear]

You guys and your fuel cells, where are you going to get all the power that would be required to feed the fuel cells if they became widely used in automobiles?? Maybe from fossil fuels. The energy has to come from somewhere.

Nope, think the planet is doomed and we are all f#cked..

 

[shadeau]

Hey -- what's with this new political section?

Anyway, when I started this thread, I thought it would generate a few replies, but I didn't expect nine pages in nine hours. Very few of the terbites who disagreed with me were able to give reasons why they think global warming is bad. For example, Beefy4me simply replies,"of course it is", but doesn't explain why. Supersquad1968 helpfully provides a link to the Pew Center's web-site, but when I went there I could find no information saying WHY global warming is supposed to be bad. They had a question there asking "why should the United States reduce its greenhouse gas emission?" and the answer the Pewites came up with was: "The United States is responsible for approximately 25 percent of [ghg] emissions." I'm sorry -- that's not an answer. An answer would be to say that this-or-that negative consequence will follow from not reducing our emissions.

A few of you did give reasons.

Since Drunken Master is one of the more intelligent terbites, I'm not surprised that he was one of those few. He wrote that "the real problem... is water. I hope you like to swim, because once the polar ice-caps start melting..." Despite my respect for DM, I don't buy his argument. To the best of my knowledge, no one is claiming that we'll have temperatures above those the planet experienced during the Mesozoic era, and the dinosaurs had plenty of dry land to walk around on.

Happygrump correctly notes that "warmer air holds more moisture." but, going back to the Mesozoic era again, enough rain fell then that there wasn't widespread desertification.

This thread seems to have mostly developed into a discussion about alternative fuel sources. I'm all for the development of hydrogen fuel-cells or whatever -- we're going to run out of oil at some point and we'll need a replacement. But that's beside the point. My original question was: Is global warming bad? And if so, WHY?

 

[happygrump]

Happygrump correctly notes that "warmer air holds more moisture." but, going back to the Mesozoic era again, enough rain fell then that there wasn't widespread desertification.

Actually, we don't know if that is actually true. We do know that the earth was significantly warmer then, but we don't have any evidence of the percentage of arable vs non-arable land.

Thing is, you may be right. But we just don't know.

However, to your point: Is global warming necessarily bad?

For humans, yes. We now modify our environment to suit our needs, instead of evolving to suit a changing environment. A massively changing environment like we are seeing now is disrupting our social, economic and cultural systems. Add the displacement of large scale populations, a human propensity for violence, and the potential for disaster is very real.

For the rest of the planet, for the large-scale biomass aside from humans, adaptation and evolution will maintain the balance like it always has.

 

[KBear]

It would be bad news for many reasons, our ecosystem has evolved over many 10,000s years to survive with the climate as it is now, and may not survive if there was much of a change. Sure it would eventually adapt, but not for 10,000s of years. If the temperatures increased, areas that are fairly arid now could become deserts, lakes could start to dry up. The southern US is looking at all the water we have up here, and they want it. If things get desperate, they might just take the water. There is a lake somewhere in the Middle East that was sucked dry to feed other areas, it could happen here too.

 

[WoodPeckr]

My original question was: Is global warming bad? And if so, WHY?

At the bottom of page 4 of this thread I brought up a link to a NPR radio show which detailed many of the reasons why global warming is very bad. Water is a big part of it, as polar caps melt, ocean water levels rise and expand as they grow warmer altering currents and related life systems, resulting in even more C02 and Methane gas (CH4, Methane gas is an even bigger threat than CO2) being given off at even faster accelerating rates, etc.
Also the worlds glaciers are melting at alarming rates. Vegetation is growing in places it never could survive before along with longer growing seasons, which only results in more CO2 & CH4 being produced which in turn causes more global warming. These facts have been documented and proven in this study, which will no doubt be challenged by the Oil lobby which has the most to lose.

If you have the time here is a link to a last friday radio show on NPR dealing with a comprehensive report on Global Warming and what it bodes for the future:

Just scroll down to the Climate Change Update and you can listen to this show:

http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown...004&prgId=5

 

[onthebottom]

Ah, the big oil boogieman.... how boring.

At the end of the day, oil is cheap, plentiful and powerful.

In the near term we need to maximize oil, in the long term H2 will provide the power.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned ethanol.

OTB

 

[WoodPeckr]

Ah, the big oil boogieman.... how boring.

At the end of the day, oil is cheap, plentiful and powerful.

In the near term we need to maximize oil, in the long term H2 will provide the power.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned ethanol.

OTB

Oil....Cheap!?!?!?!...Oh right forgot about Saudi Arabia, Kuwait & Iraq where the cost hovers at < 20 cents/gal., while the rest of the world is being raped by the Oil cartels! Maybe you are content being on your knees before them but I for one am not.

Ethanol would be a great boon to the farmers, in both USA and Canada, but it is like oil, a dirty fuel. This fact hasn't stopped Brazil though which runs its vehicles on almost 100% ethanol and with no problems mind you. Brazil grows its own fuel, and we could also.......but then again Big Oil would not look to kindly on that sort of thing.

H2 is the ticket to freedom, always has been.

 

[shadeau]

Happygrump -- I don't think it's global warming itself that's "disrupting our social, economic and cultural systems." It's the fear-mongering of people like David Suzuki that's doing that. Your prediction of "the displacement of large scale populations" seems to me like a reaction to that fear-mongering. If the temperature changed suddenly and drastically tomorrow, then the effects WOULD be disastrous. But that's not the situation. Global warming is apparently happening very slowly. People are going to have time to adjust to the changes over the course of decades. Certainly we Canadians aren't going to have to move anywhere. And if more people from tropical climates choose to move here, that'll probably be good for us. (I'm a believer in Julian Simon's theory that higher populations are good for countries.) Anyway, I personally doubt that it'll ever be so hot at the equator that people won't want to live there.

Woodpeckr -- you contend that melting polar caps will release more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. I'm guessing that this is supposedly bad because (if I remember correctly) CO2 and methane are "greenhouse gases". In other words: "global warming is bad because it leads to global warming." Circular reasoning isn't a reason. Thanks for the link to the NPR show, but I just don't have time to sit here and listen to it. And I hear those sorts of reports all the time on CBC and they never convince me. If there's a point you think is particularly important and will change my mind, feel free to post it.

 

[WoodPeckr]

shadeau,

Well that radio show did point out that last year the average temp in Alaska was 5 degrees above the norm, the warmest ever recorded there. Also it documented how malaria, a tropical disease, is currently spreading to further northern climates into places it could never survive just 50 years ago. This comes from doctors and scientists who are just reporting their recent findings.

That show is worth a listen and I place more stock in it than say something the 'paid scientists' of Exxon, Mobil, Texaco etc., may put out.

 

[happygrump]

I don't think it's global warming itself that's "disrupting our social, economic and cultural systems." It's the fear-mongering of people like David Suzuki that's doing that. Your prediction of "the displacement of large scale populations" seems to me like a reaction to that fear-mongering. If the temperature changed suddenly and drastically tomorrow, then the effects WOULD be disastrous. But that's not the situation. Global warming is apparently happening very slowly. People are going to have time to adjust to the changes over the course of decades. Certainly we Canadians aren't going to have to move anywhere. And if more people from tropical climates choose to move here, that'll probably be good for us. (I'm a believer in Julian Simon's theory that higher populations are good for countries.) Anyway, I personally doubt that it'll ever be so hot at the equator that people won't want to live there.

Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been. That's my fault.

My point was that the change in climate, resulting in inundation of coastal communities and the desertification of arable land, will cause shifts in population patterns and large-scale migrations of people. With such migrations come the inevitable social, economic, political and cultural problems, not to mention medical issues as diseases spread around the globe. (According to the WHO, the potential of an influenza pandemic causing widespread disease and disruption is very real, and it's just a matter of time.

We humans, as well, have a tendency to wait until the last minute before we take action. So no matter how slow the changes happen, there will undoubtedly be an eventual panic as coastal communities are flooded, their economic and cultural systems are wiped out, and tensions between have's and have-not's continue to increase.

 

[Ranger68]

but isn't global changes one of the things sited by evelutionists as bringing about changes in the species? There fore would not global climatic changes just leave room for an elevolutionary bonnanza?

Sure. As long as you're willing to accept that global climate change will lead to massively increased desertification and hugely increased sea levels - and the death by starvation and displacement of a billion people or so.

 

[Ranger68]

Of course since science is devided over the idea of global warming. The fear by the chicken littles may be an exercise in futility

Science is only "devided" over the idea in the sense that it's very difficult to determine how much of this engine is being driven by man, how much occurs normally over global cycles - things like that.
Not whether or not global warming is a bad thing for us. They're pretty much unanimous on that count.

 

[papasmerf]

Science is only "devided" over the idea in the sense that it's very difficult to determine how much of this engine is being driven by man, how much occurs normally over global cycles - things like that.
Not whether or not global warming is a bad thing for us. They're pretty much unanimous on that count.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by papasmerf
Of course since science is devided over the idea of global warming. The fear by the chicken littles may be an exercise in futility




with that said
the intent was that science is devided over the issue itself. The question of if it is happening has yet to be proven scientificly and as an absolute.