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Another site which process all the satelite data every day is the cryosphere today [arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu ] at the univeristy of illinois.
We were not supposed to see this amount of ice lost until 2050, so we are a good 40 years ahead of schedule for a summertime ice free arctic.
Start planning your North Pole sailing trips now :)
...
Well, maybe not. B^>
Rgds
Damon
[youtube.com...]
Another government operation trying to justify its existence?
Hear any more about this? Nope.
Hole sealing itself.
Mother nature is one hell of a girl.
Either that, or the Vogon Constructor Fleet will finish us and Mother nature at the same time.
I think the second option will be less painfull :)
Also remember a number of chemicals we used to use in refridgerants and aerosol were also removed.
Otherwise, those "raving European Liberal <insert adjectives used as insults here> Communists:" that DamonHD mentions could simply arrange to pass edicts such as:
And those are just a few. The idea is that in order to stop warming caused by greenhouse-gas emission, we will either have to centralize totally, or abandon almost all centralization and return to the 'village' way of life: Everything within walking distance, grow your own food, use very little energy.
Some technologies, like the internet, would assist in doing that; For example, I work at home, grow some of my own food, and drive very little. The trick is to get more people --a lot more-- to do that. And importantly, to get it done without destroying the global economy (and civilization) as we do it. It took 200 years to get where we are, and it may take another 200 before we can get back to the pre-industrial-revolution levels of emission -- if that's even possible considering the world's greatly-increased population since that time.
It's going to take some really deep thinking by people smarter than me to figure out how to greatly reduce energy use and emissions without throwing us all back into the the stone age.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to chuckle at the anti-global-warming protesters who drive everywhere they want to go, leave the lights on when they exit the room, and generally consume more energy in their home than an entire 18th-century village.
Jim
The challenge is to minimize carbon dioxide emissions while not destroying the economies we now depend on to survive.
Maybe, just maybe, we could find another economy to depend on, apart from the one that will cause our downfall.
1. Methane gas (released by rotting garbage in landfill sites; cows; sheep and apparently, soon the melting permafrost will release a whole heap) is 21 times worst than CO2 in terms of warming
2. Nitrous oxides is 270 times worst than CO2 - produced by agriculture, industrial activities and burning fuels
3. Hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride are the super heavy weights produced by various manufacturing industries
Perhaps the better thing is to stop having children, so that we consume less resources.
Alternatively technology has to change, business ideologies need to change.....man has to change his hunting methodologies if we really want to see the impact reduced over time. Otherwise right now it is a drop in the ocean. However greed is a hard beast to tame.
Some of us have just been too damn selfish to have any in the first place.
Money saved on not having kid = More money for toys... for me!
I'd also be quite happy to get a vasectomy - to show my commitment - if there was something in it for me. Make vasectomys & tubal ligations free! Give me a tax break for not having kids, or give me a tax break if I get a vasectomy! My loins will put no strain on the education system, the health care system, or the Earth itself! Put me on a pedestal for thinking of the greater good!
;)
Well, we probably don't. But I'd guess it will still take 200 years. Or more.
There isn't a simple answer, and it will take a complete re-thinking of almost everything to fix the problem. That's the problem with it, it's an energy problem, and our modern way of life is based on the harnessing of energy that took place during the industrial revolution. Some may say we took the wrong path, and to them I direct the question: What alternatives do we have?
That's why I said it'll take smarter people than me to figure out a way to reduce emissions without requiring us all to re-enter the stone age (or die). And that solution has to take human nature into account -- Greed, the drive to reproduce, and slow acceptance of new ways of life; All will enter into it.
Too bad hydrogen gas is so dangerous. If it weren't, we could probably come up with a quick-fix while weaning everyone from fossil fuels and excess consumption. As it stands now, we have no viable technical solutions; All of the "magic" technologies like solar, wind, and wave power have serious drawbacks -- technical and/or environmental, and no-one wants a new reactor built in their neighborhood -- plus the inherent security problems...
I don't have the answers -- I don't profess to have any answers. But it is an interesting problem, to say the least.
Jim
no-one wants a new reactor built in their neighborhood
From what I been reading, nobody even wants a wind turbine built in their neighborhood.
What are you going to do with that mindset.
[earth.org.uk...] (mods excise this if you wish of course).
It was actually fun working out how to get my home server (Apache and Tomcat Web servers, DNS, NTP and SMTP) power consumption low enough to run entirely off-grid on solar power for a little of each day (about 3 hours/day this month). It's simply miserable and selfish and idle for people to dismiss out of hand even trying.
Am I suffering for this economy? No, and indeed my office is a much more pleasant 6C cooler to. I conquered 'Local Warming'!
I'm also going to can one of my less-busy remote mirror sites to can its energy use too.
Rgds
Damon
PS. I'm not going to manage your 0.1kWh/day target!
PPS. I wish to reserve capital punishment for people who wear their glasses in their hair and/or play crappy pop tunes loudly on their mobile phones. That would wipe out a large chunk of the 13--25 age group at a stroke of course.
[edited by: DamonHD at 3:39 pm (utc) on Aug. 19, 2007]
If humans were to suddenly disappear off the face of the planet, wonders the author of a new book, is it possible the surviving world would feel our absence?[...]
Within two days, millions of gallons of water under New York City, unchecked by pumps, would flood the subways.
Seven days after the abrupt disappearance of our species, the emergency fuel supply to diesel generators, which circulate cooling water to nuclear reactor cores, would run out.
A year after the world becomes a people-free zone, animals would begin to return to the sites of nuclear reactors and lice would grow extinct.
Thinking about what jdMorgan has said, I add this quote as food-for-thought:
[Book author Alan] Weisman believes that even if everyone adopted a environmentally conscious lifestyle, it would not be enough."Even if all of us had the good will to reduce our footprints on nature, recycled like crazy, used compact fluorescents, and did everything we possibly could, there would still be too many of us doing it," he says.
No doubt there are contentious points in his book, and since it's forward-looking, it's all hypothetical. I still imagine it will make an interesting read, though...
And of course, hydroelectric power affects freshwater fish and the hydrology of the entire downstream area. Oh, and tidal power is problematic, because seawater tends to destroy any metal parts very quickly...
All-electric cars sounds great, until you ask "What is the source of the energy used to charge this vehicle?" and "What are these huge (and costly, and limited-service-life) batteries made of?"
If it were easy, we'd have probably made some measurable progress already...
I agree with Weisman; There are simply too many of us, and we simply must stop reproducing at the current rate... You first. ;)
Jim
There are simply too many of us, and we simply must stop reproducing at the current rate... You first.
Yep, that's the flaw in the 'stop breeding' strategy. All that happens is that your non-existent kids lose out to someone else's non-non-existent kids.
From what I been reading, nobody even wants a wind turbine built in their neighborhood...
It is actually much worse than that.
Our business is solar - yet the two major impediments in many places to using solar is outdated (or in a few cases, deliberately restrictive) local zoning/construction codes, and Home Owners Associations. Last year, after 3 years of litigation, homeowners in one small town finally got the 'right' to install solar hot water - but only after getting rid of the person on the city council that was also the local natural gas company rep.
I think the only way these kind of attitudes will change is when the price of electricity hits 50 cents a KWH and heating oil to hit $8.
And a side note - over the past 10 years so-called renewable energy has grown at about 20% a year. Yet it is falling further and further behind in percentage of use, because energy and population demand is growing so much faster, especially in India and China.
But one of the major problems with trying to limit population growth is not in the developed countries - in fact some, like Norway (I think) have a negative replacement birthrate. The biggest part of the population growth is in the poorest countries. In 1980 Africa had 25% of the population and produced 12% of the worlds electricity used. Today it is still 25% of the world population but produces only 4%.
[edited by: Wlauzon at 8:54 am (utc) on Aug. 20, 2007]
Also remember a number of chemicals we used to use in refridgerants and aerosol were also removed. - well thats true however look at China, they havent banned CFC's and i would imainge their output alone makes up for any cut we may have made.
If China was using CFCs, it would be for a western purpose.
Having been to China - it appears that Beijing air is as bad as Los Angeles' air. However, go out to the villages and towns and there are many that do not have the essentials that the western think are essentials like "washing machines", "refridgerators", "a gas guzzling car", "a TV", "hot water", "flushing toilets"
Many live frugal existence even in the city; one that would be impossible for many Western persons to live who require a standard of living that is directly proportional to their energy consumption.
China's output is a result of the West buying China goods - becos only a small percentage of Chinese have the wealth of the West to buy the goods!
And a side note - over the past 10 years so-called renewable energy has grown at about 20% a year. Yet it is falling further and further behind in percentage of use, because energy and population demand is growing so much faster, especially in India and China.
Although it is interesting to note that parts of China have energy from anaerobic digestion cos there ain't no street lighting or nothing.
Also China is building a 100MW solar plant. India is increasing its Bangalore plant to a 300MW solar plant.
I believe energy consumption in India and China may be a result of western demands for products. Thus more industry.
But one of the major problems with trying to limit population growth is not in the developed countries - in fact some, like Norway (I think) have a negative replacement birthrate. The biggest part of the population growth is in the poorest countries. In 1980 Africa had 25% of the population and produced 12% of the worlds electricity used. Today it is still 25% of the world population but produces only 4%
FT May 2007, reported China's CO2 emission by the end of 2008 would be 3.2 tonnes per head compared to UK 4.x tonnes per head; US 20 tonnes per head.
P.S. Wlauzon - it would be interesting to find out who manufactured the solar panels or provided the raw materials for the the solar panels you use.
[edited by: Monkey at 2:15 pm (utc) on Aug. 20, 2007]
My understanding is that newer panel construction processes are *relatively* benign on those fronts, especially amorphous, and probably considerably less polluting in terms of the side toxins than the non-renewables that they avoid the use of.
And with CFLs, the mercury in them is less than that from the coal that would be burnt (in the US in particular I think: the UK is ~60% gas burn for electricity and ~20% nuclear) to power the older incandescents.
So, while none of the new stuff is without environmental penalty, most or all of those penalties seem to come in lower than the existing stuff, which is amazing... The big stumbling cost is capital cost and (it seems) indolence.
Rgds
Damon
China's power generating capacity rose by 20.3 percent year-on-year to reach 622 million kilowatts at the end of last year.Of the total, the capacity of hydro-electric power plants was more than 128 million kilowatts, up 9.5 percent year-on-year, and the capacity of thermal power plants exceeded 484 million kilowatts, up 23.7 percent.
622 million kw = 622 gigawatts.
So while adding 300 MW of solar sounds good (and probably is),compared to the 100+ gigawatts added overall in one year, it is a pretty small percentage. And it still leaves energy demand growing much faster than anything but nuke, hydro, and coal can keep up with.
Without better conservation and energy efficiency, the world will never catch up.
[edited by: Wlauzon at 7:26 pm (utc) on Aug. 20, 2007]
Rgds
Damon
Brazil has been printing solar cells onto plastic for a cheaper method of producing solar panels - don't know about the toxic wastes - don't remember what the solar conductivity of this last method is like. Think it is reduced compared to normal solar panels.
Currently Germany is researching special lenses to concentrate the light to a electronic chip that will both reduce the price of a solar cell plus use less toxic materials plus increase the efficiency of conversion to electricity.
[edited by: Monkey at 10:34 pm (utc) on Aug. 20, 2007]
