Science of Global Warming

[spice]

Global warming is a reality. Even morons like W understand now, if for no other reason than it has been drummed into his big, hollow head by some of his intellectual betters (= any fifth grader who is paying attention).

Whether we are the 'cause' per se, or just 'a contributing factor' is really a moot point, because it's happening. My opinion is that the earth does undergo climactic change and upheaval, but that this is a very sensitive balance struck within the ecosystem over many millenia, and our huge carbon dioxide emissions are affecting the equillibrium of the balance that was so painstakingly acheived by the biosphere across the eons.

I've noticed many peoples eyes glaze over at the mention of this subject, with the general mindset that it is a matter better left to 'the experts'....who's that? The EPA?
The petroleum chemists that forgot their high school chemistry and invented the wondrous 'catalytic converter'?
Fuuu-uckk.
For those of you too young to remember, there used to be a certain type of gasoline used to fuel our vehicles which was different than the unleaded fuels we use today. These old time fuels were enriched with this wondrous compound called tetra-ethyl lead, a toxic combustion enhancer which was well on the way to poisoning everything on the fucking planet with a nice lead oxide patina.

Gee, they deserve my trust!!!!!!!!!

So, when these fucking bone-heads realized they were about to kill everything they furiously returned to the drawing board, in search of 'the answer'.

Enter: The Catalytic Converter, Answer to all our problems...

The whole deal with the tetra ethyl lead was that it enhanced the burn rate of these fuels, and as anyone in the field knows, the amount of pollution produced drops dramatically with increased combustion;

In theory, anything burned COMPLETELY produces three things;

Energy
CO2
Water

This is the basis of it all. The companies devised a fuel that was unleaded, but there were problems; this fuel still produced a high amount of nitro compounds (contributors to acid rain and other pollution) as well as other by products of incomplete combustion.
This really goes to the heart of what a catalytic converter does; It finishes the burning process, and makes water, carbon dioxide, and a shitload of heat, which is also actually a 'pollutant' of sorts.

Now, imagine this; CO2 has nowhere to go when released into the atmosphere. The atmosphere is finite. Most people I've encountered don't even grasp this. ( If anything should be drummed into peoples heads its basic science, jesus h)
Because it's finite, what changes is the concentration of the gas. True, the earth has ways of dealing with excesses of CO2, within limits, such as the biosynthetic process (plants)
and the fact that the oceans act as a huge sink for CO2 as well....but we're deforesting the planet, so there goes a big chunk of the efficiency. We make more and more cars, each year, many of American Companies offerings still get abyssmal mileage.....wtf? Why won't they just be direct about it and tell us all to shut up?
But we're tipping the EQUILLIBRIUM, people, and equillibrium is defined as the science of reactions which are not driven to completion.

As an example, a simple example, lets burn a mole of METHANE....



CH4 + 2 O2------------> CO2 and 2 H2O

These are ratios that are science. These ratios utilize moles, which is a proven chemists way of measuring and tracking MASS, regardless of the transformations it goes through.
It is ideal for the purposes of this discussion.
I could go into the numbers but thats not really the point, this is;
It is possible to measure exactly how much CO2 is going into the atmosphere, how much has went into the atmosphere, and yes, to project how much will be pumped into the atmosphere. There is a reason that everyone is all of a sudden doing a mad dash to reduce their carbon footprint and this is why; Every scientist KNOWS whats going on, they know we have endangered the stability of our climate on an EON scale.
If we stopped it all today, it would take maybe 100 years to reverse itself. Maybe.
In the example above, note; 16 g of methane produces 44 g of CO2. Thats the magic of moles and it applies to science, whether its global warming or psychedelics, it's all the same.

The catalytic converters legacy is that it is the device which exponentially increased CO2 emissions across the board, all over the world. It catalytically finishes the burning process of the fuels introduced, this is why when they are operating as designed ( notice I didn't say 'right') the only emissions are the water you frequently see dripping out of the exhaust pipe and carbon dioxide.

This is yet another of the myriad examples of why near-sighted whores should not be allowed to make such important judgements.
Asking oil companies to come up with a way to fix the polluting problem is like asking a cop to interpret the law.
This is one example of dominator philosophy poisoning all our realities. The sand is only a good place to have your head if you're an ostrich.

 

[Lion]

The mass of ice is smaller then the mass of water.
If Every iceblock on earth melts, you will hardly notice any difference.

Also the bad weather has allways been on this planet.
And will allways be there.

I'm a bitt sceptical versus the global warming.
I do admit, though, that mankind fucks this planet up...

But weren't we doomed from the beginning?

 

[MindAstronaut]

Your totally right about asking the oil companies to come up with solutions , how fucking stupid are we...

We need to punich those fuckers who got us into this shit.

Energy wars are on there way, its already started (look at Irak) and now the Chinese and American governemt has already send troops, to regions in the middle Asia and Africa to secure there energy suplys.

Its a shame that they wont want to fix the problem (by finding alternatives energy sourses). I'm afraid the corporate world sees to much money our planetary death. And they people who should protect us from those evil activities are also making a nice fucking $ out of it..

"Spice" keep up the info :wink:

 

[buffachino]

There is immense confusion and ignorance over the entire reality that is the degradation of the natural order of the earth’s climate.

Of course, change is naturally essential; the climate, like all things, is shifting constantly, with factors such as the magnetic and radial activity of the sun and other influential celestial bodies, also the natural and synchronous evolution of earth itself. Yet as spice shows, and as reason dictates, the elemental foundation of the planet and its atmosphere are finite qualities of this dimensional body; thus, the somewhat ephemeral physical constituents inherent within the earth, especially that of the delicate atmosphere, are being consumed and monopolised by humanities degenerative manipulation of the intrinsic equilibrium inherent within the biosphere and its ubiquitous synergy with life.

It is this confusion which is the medium for further ignorance and complacency toward our debilitating and voracious consumption of the earth. Those who do not grasp or acknowledge the concept of environmental corruption, do not give concession to it as a major factor if not a cause for the more violent and unstable climate in the last century.
This ignorance is also a division of the industrial plot to maintain the monopolist conduct toward our unremorseful rape of this planet.

Like most unprofitable inconvenience that the dominating establishment faces, they have turned this great hindrance to their continued malevolence into yet another lucrative sales ploy; buy ‘green’ and save the world, buy carbon credits and somehow ‘erase’ your emissions, or the immense pollution that electrical generators or highways produce, at the effortless click of a button; giving the illusion that you can do something about the problem without doing anything at all. Having piece of mind is worth fuck all in the long and short of it.

Just as I said in my last post here; mankind, through the ignorance of our ill-perceived importance above all beings and systems concordant to us, have simply replaced our problems with more problems in the naive expectation that we can somehow defeat nature at its own game; attempting to change nature instead of changing ourselves. Attempting to escape the disfiguring and irreversible degradation of our planet through further complacent disdain or replacement of one destructive technology for another will only disguise and accelerate this crisis.

So in fact attempting to ignore or substitute the problem, you give rise to further and greater problems. The only real way to stop our malignant and artificial proprietary is not through more rudimentary technology, which will only continue to exacerbate the complacent slavery to the dominating industrial structure that causes the world to decay. The birth of change will not come pre-packaged by those who breed and market devastation, and disseminate our subservient compliance to their malignant agenda; it must come from each and every one of us. We must renounce every link to the convenience and ignorance of this lifestyle to which we have become psychologically and physically addicted, and through this, return to the true nature of ourselves and the universe; to symbiotically evolve for the synchronous benefit of endless novelty.

Peace.

 

[spice]

Lion- It seems as if you have trouble believing we have an effect on the climate. There's nothing wrong with being skeptical, that is the basic premise of a good scientist. However, I will tell you that this 'theory' has been exhaustively debated, and the conclusion among scientists who don't get paid by auto or oil companies is universal;

We are having an effect.

I watched a documentary on pbs last night. The computer models projected for 2060 show that most coastal cities we live in today will be, to one degree or another under water...

some only a foot or two, and some much more...

Geologists have ways to look at weather 'epochs' or 'eras' by tapping into polar ice and they have ways of measuring how much carbon dioxide existed in the biosphere at these times and compare it to other data.... they have computer models which tend to show that the earth does go thru changes as you imply, but that these changes are generally much more gradual and are milder. The culprit seems to be that an outside factor(us) has introduced something into a closed system which WAS A REGULATOR in that system.

CO2 regulates heat retained in the atmosphere.
As CO2 levels increase, overall temp rises, they have records and measurements which correlate these rises to increased CO2 levels.
As overall temp rises, polar ice melts.
As polar ice melts, land is lost.

Water absorbs and retains, more heat than land. This is why hurricanes form over warm tropical waters and weaken over land.

As land is lost, green is lost.
Green is the 'reverse lungs' that make co2 into oxygen.

These are some of the reasons why everyone who understands the science is freaking out.

You don't have to 'believe' in it.
Science doesn't care.

Try not believing in the light switch before you turn it on next time.

Yes, I am oversimplifying, to make a point.

That point is this;

It is accepted among scientists already. Ther reason they aren't making a bigger deal than they are is the same reason they'd calmly inform us an asteroid is heading straight for
earth; They don't want to panic the masses and cause a stampede.

A 'mole' as I referred to earlier, is a chemists way of measuring, and tracking, atomic mass....

The language of moles is critical to undestanding anything about chemical reactions.

A mole is simply a certain large number of atoms, or molecules....if I say a mole of hydrogen, a chemist knows it weighs 2 grams. He is taught this from go.
If I say a mole of carbon dioxide, it's 44 g/mole.

A mole of ANY GAS takes up 22.4 liters of volume at STP,
which is 25c, 1 atm....

so, every time I burn something, I create a carbon footprint, or emission.....

Burning methane, as I noted above, creates a mole of co2 for each mole of methane burned.

Since anything burned has to combine with oxygen in order to burn there is ALWAYS going to be more co2 released than there was fuel put in. This is a large part of the problem.

Methane is a simple, small molecule..

lets examine;

Pump gas contains many fractions, or differing compounds, all mixed together and generically called 'gas'...

Some chemicals used are MTBE, (methyl-tert-butyl ether)
cyclohexane, and MTPE (methyl-tert-propyl ether)

These are larger molecules than methane, and they have much more carbon atom content. Every carbon atom in a fossil fuel combines with two atoms of oxygen to make a co2 molecule. The analogy i made above about an air compressor is accurate, we are compressing more and more gas into a finite space. This gas is an insulator, we're killing the very organisms that CONVERT this gas to o2, and we're setting the stage for a much water-ier world.

BTW, heating of the oceans is the factor most responsible for our overall weather patterns. There is conclusive data which shows we are heating the oceans. OUr future world will be much stormier as well.

You can't be selective about which established scientific principles you choose to 'believe in' and which ones you don't, science is not a matter of faith, but a matter of observation, and deduction. The same science that allows me to count how many electrons I can draw out of a mole of aluminum foil to make ecstasy also allows me to count how many molecules of CO2 exxon is putting in the air.

It's just a matter of grasping the math, and staying focused long enough to follow the bread crumb trail.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Mankind has an influence, but it's insignificant compared to the impact of the Sun cycle. If mankind causes global warming, please explain the global warming on Mars.

 

[spice]

Well of course the sun cycle has an influence; where else would these naturally occurring fluctuations I spoke of earlier emanate from?

But thats about where the similarity ends. In many ways comparing earth and mars is like comparing, well, earth and mars...

Mars has no atmosphere, and negligible water. Therefore, just about every comparison made between the similarities in the two are sort of skewed. A tilt in mars' orbit, or even a wobble, could have more dramatic effect, simply because there's no buffer, such as what an atmospheric layer provides.

In other words, mars doesn't have a weather system like ours, water like ours, or an atmosphere like ours. Heat leaves the surface of mars faster, and for most points in this discussion, its a matter of degree anyway....

Even allowing for the truth of sun cycle influence, I still see nothing in your theory to explain away all the science thats backing up proponents of global warming. There still seems to exist a strong mindset among many that we aren't able to influence such mighty events as a weather cycle with our puny efforts. To these people, I say, you couldn't be more wrong.

And its an ADDITIVE influence.

You say that the influence of manmade activity is 'negligible'

Its not negligible when you are destroying your environment by raping the planet. Don't allow disinformation masquerading as facts confuse the issue. There is nothing in the theory of global warming as I laid it out refuting other sources as contributors....it makes me a bit suspicious of motive when I see people try to explain away hard science with weak analogies.

 

[spice]

Go here for information that refutes your assertions.

and strongly

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on ... -warm.html

 

[spice]

For those of you who didn't want to read it, or can't access it, the verdict is clear;

Sun cycle influence is minimal.
The burning of fossil fuels is the largest contributor, by far, to global warming, for (gasp!) the reasons I exhaustively laid out earlier.

 

[spice]

This whole global warming debate is one that is divisive, and in my opinion it is the modern expression of the same energies that fueled the whole science vs religion debate
back in the times of Darwin and the Scopes monkey trial,
when Clarence Darrow destroyed religion defender William Jennings Bryan on the stand in a courtroom in Tennesee, by exposing Bryans lack of scientific understanding and his willingness to believe the myths and fairy-tales he was told as a child, at church, and his willingness to pass these myths off as 'opinion' and 'facts'...
Thee are three types of people I have encountered so far that do not 'believe in global warming'...

1) People who do not understand the science

2) Religious people who are afraid of the sciences' implications

3) Rednecks such as Oil company lawyers, race-car drivers,
cohorts of satan, er, Bush, and others who amplify their greed by keeping things as they are

But we are supposed to be in the 21st century here, and that means we are supposed to understand chemistry 101.

For all of you out there who find drug chemistry fascinating, and are inspired by tales recounted by some, realize that the difference between a chemist and a 'dope cook' is that one has VISION, and can see far, by standing on the shoulders of giants, and one....has a recipe....and has to pray every time he executes it.

You must embrace the science, even if it goes against the traditions that were hammered into your head when you were young....I find also, that most peoples attitudes about this subject are hand-me-down attitudes, ones they basically 'inherited' in whole cloth form, from someone such as their father, grandfather, etc...much like political views..

This speaks to the heart of how to go about effecting radical change in comprehension on a generational basis;

by not saddling your offspring with pseudo-scientific attitudes., by not instilling a distrust of 'them goddamn evolutionist liberal scientists'....

...and yeah, it may be a hella scary future to contemplate, but at least place the blame where it belongs, on the forces of oil, industry, and religion, societies pimps.

 

[Forkbender]

The mass of ice is smaller then the mass of water.
If Every iceblock on earth melts, you will hardly notice any difference.

That would only be true if every block of ice would be in the water already. A lot of it is on land, though.

 

[Dantediv86]

you also forgot to mention (my father is a geologist and explained to me the mechanisms of what i+m about to say) that we are late on an Ice Age and we are risking to skip it (ice ages are normal on this planet), becauseeeeeee....
so for all those skepticals out there
why would we bw missing out on an ice age if it wasn't for global warming?
besides global warming as Spice said previously was a phenomenon happening in eons way before human's appearance (but there were global "coldings" as well to keep the equilibrium).
of course one may argue and say wtf what do i care when respiring organisms appeared they did the same with oxygen and turned the world from a non oxygen using organism paradise to a new breeding oxygen using organism paradise. we are all gonna die let's just wait for this big change and get ourselves comfy...this is a product of our overly huge number and is binging down our survival instincts.

BTW!!! i loved your post buff, not all of it but especially the last paragraph rocks!
ok ppl let's start turning off some computers , hu? and driving less
and keeping our AC at the minimum!

 

[Meduzz]

global warming is a fact, but you have to be the demon of laplace to know how this is going to evolve. there is a reason why the chaos theory is partly based on the weather system.

let's just hope that if earth turns out to be not suitable for human life anymore, that evolution provides it with beter beings...

 

[GOD]

I watched a documentary a few days ago where Mojib Latif a scientist specialising in the global climate change said that at a meeting recently of the worlds 2000 top weather / climate experts it was proved beyond doubt in several ways that humanity is responsible for the extremes of global warming that we are now begining to see . He also said that every time that scientists had told governments that they had to do something that the governments said that they would do it but that every time they actualy did less than they needed to and had promised . Then he said that all the predictions that scientists had ever made about the climate change in the past had always been wrong , that it had always turned out to be worse than they thought that it would be .

Here are a few examples from other sources that i remember of what we are probably going to see happen .

Scientists estimate that there are 12 billion tons of Methanhydrate deposits on the sea bed around the world and that when the temperature of the sea goes up 5°C it will be released as the green house gas methane and cause a "blow-out-effect" . This would cause more than double the damage to the climate than all the gas , coal and oil reseves left on the planet are capable of causing . The temperature in some parts of Siberia have already gone up 5°c .

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanhydrat

Krill is the backbone of the food chain in the sea . Without them most of the animals that live in the sea would die . It is said that they live for up to 8 years and that if the temperature of the sea goes up a few degrees that their life cycle would be interupted and that they would die out because they can not adapt as fast as the sea temperature is rising .

The same goes for coral and the ecosystem that depends on it .

When the ice melts in Siberia , Canada and in other places around the world the plants that are frozen underneath it will start to foul and rot causing masive amounts of methan gas to be released into the atmosphere .

Mountains underneath ice / permafrost have all been damaged by the formation of that ice and are now held together by it . When the ice melts there will be massive landslides , as have recently be seen in the alps . It is predicted that when this happens , for example in Norway , that these land slides , when large parts of a mountain slide into the sea , will cause massive tsunamis that will reach the whole of the East coast of North America and do extensive damage .

 

[????????]

I think people's negligence in accepting this has a lot to do with religious thinking.

There is a LOT of people that --I think it's safe to say that they're the majority, or at least a big chunk-- just shove things away because they don't want to be troubled with it (everyone of us is a bit like this in a way). I think that the majority of people who go to church are hypocrites. They are not mean intentioned or anything but they are the passive accepting flock that swallows all the jesus myth without reflecting for a second because it's EASY.

One of my best friends is very smart and a great guy but if I start talking about god or similar things he just won't listen. And he tells me why also; and it's a very respectable position; he says that he prefers thinking about his current reality, daily life, university, his girlfriend; instead of the nature of our existence and god and all that.

He makes the sign of the cross when passing a church because it makes him feel good, it's a comfortable position to take, because otherwise he would have to think why the hell we are all here right now and all those sort of things. I do not share his escapist position, rather, I amuse myself thinking about all these sort of things but, sadly, I seem to be a minority.

And he's partially right, one HAS to put a way a lot of things in order to concentrate and live in a successful way, but these things have a habit of getting to dangerous levels. These "useful illusions" get us on trouble. The pope and his minions make a profit with this very human condition. Now, scientist are telling us we have fucked up and are raping our planet but people just don't accept it; maybe they acknowledge it on certain level but DEEP down in their minds they don't, again, like people who go to church, that speak proudly of their religiousness when given the chance but in truth couldn't give less about "their" god.

I have more respect for the religious fanatic who talks about his believes and tries to convert me that the go-with-the-masses lazy brain kind that doesn't give a shit. The first ones may be wrong but is because of the latter kind that we are like we are. Some try to bring truth fort talking about global warming and climate change but these guys have "more important" things in their minds to think about.

Well, this time it just doesn't get any more important.

If in the future things somehow blow in our faces and some big chunk of land goes down or there is some acid rain apocalyptic cataclysm or something to that effect I'll be very sorry BUT, at least people will get shaken to their very core and then, finally, something good could come out of all this.

 

[Forkbender]

I think that the majority of people who go to church are hypocrites.

The majority of people who do not go to church are hypocrites as well. Maybe you do not see that in a country like Greece where a lot of people still go to church, but if you remove the church, people do not change.

 

[HeartCore]

I think that the majority of people who go to church are hypocrites.

The majority of people who do not go to church are hypocrites as well. Maybe you do not see that in a country like Greece where a lot of people still go to church, but if you remove the church, people do not change.

I agree, people don't need a church to remain stupid and non informed, my own relatives are proof of that (Dad commenting how well everything is handled by the Bush administration for example, cousin who gives endangered snakes to his nine year old son without having a clue about given snake's habitat, food habits etc..).

 

[ararat]

I think that the majority of people who go to church are hypocrites.

The majority of people who do not go to church are hypocrites as well. Maybe you do not see that in a country like Greece where a lot of people still go to church, but if you remove the church, people do not change.

yes.

or lets turn it other way round: hypocrites are more likely to go to church than other people.

 

[Guest]

hypocrites don't need to go to church, they just need to go to work.

 

[Forkbender]

or lets turn it other way round: hypocrites are more likely to go to church than other people.

I don't think religion has anything to do with it. Hypocrisy is a religious term, refering to people who join the church but who don't really believe, i.e. do something that they don't truly support. I guess that religious hypocrits are only to be found in churches, but outside of them, you'll find a lot of people who think that global warming is a big issue and that we should stop it, while driving for hours in their car to work every day. Money is still more important than a healthy planet and people who will not admit this are hypocrites.

Time for a new approach:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/11/03/the_peer_to_peer_manifesto.htm