Global Warming... Have we missed the plot?

[Turley]

Was talking to one of my managers at work today and I had a scary realisation about life as we know it. Global warming is real but, it is directly relative to the amount of resources humans are using. The quote I believe is from Tim Flanneries book was that "in 1997 the amount of energy produced from burning coal alone is equivalent to 427years of energy from continual sun light." Being a semester and half from graduating from my B.Sc it saught of struck me hard. Have we missed the plot and energy/resource consumption the true environmental issue which need immediate attention? Sure CO2 can be reduced in the atmosphere, but our resources cannot be increased, unless we invent a time machine.

In 1987 the population was 5billion humans, it is now 6billion and isn't slowing down so energy consumption is only going to increase. This, as you may be able to tell, scared the hell out of me. The social consequence of eventual energy expenditure scares me, but the evolutionary result of this facinates me! The point of energy equality has been passed, but we still have heaps of time to do something about it! How? Turning of the power stations would work

I don't know. Training in genetics and evolutionary biology, my first thought was a disease would solve the population and therefore the consumption problem. This, however, is highly unethical but I am sure I am not the first to have this thought. My second thought was a little blank. What can we do? Humans have evolved to be greedy. After all, the greedy/selfish ones where previously the ones who survived. These days the selfish ones are the ones who thrive! The more selfish we are, the more we consume! Looking for a gene/genes which influence selfishness could easily be studied, but what would this acheive? Is there any variation in the human population apart from a selfish genotype!

As a consequence of all this, when I walked into my house tonight I turned the light on to walk through the hallway and subsequently turned the light off again as I turned a new one on! Saying this, I am sitting here on the computer with the TV behind me blaring with no-one watching it, appliances all on stand b,y eating processed pasta with meat in a reheated plastic dish.....

It's not what we don't know that we should fear, its what we know but don't listen to....


Too much thinking and not enough riding. All stats are Heresay but I wouldn't expect them to be far from the truth.

 

[Matt H]

Whoa! 1 billion people in 10 years!

What's the percentage of growth at the moment?

It really scares me too, we either need to stop what's happening with global warming and dwindling resources, or rather, find a new planet to start destroying

 

[pavey]

Whoa! 1 billion people in 10 years!

What's the percentage of growth at the moment?

It really scares me too, we either need to stop what's happening with global warming and dwindling resources, or rather, find a new planet to start destroying

theres more chance of the 2nd option happening than the first, really. theres not enough people looking at it seriously enough to have a massive effect on it.

 

[Turley]

Matt H,

http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/topic.jsp?i=81

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population#Rate_of_increase

Population growth appears to be most in africa...




Oh, I got that stat wrong too, it was 1987-2007 was 1billion increase. Sorry for that. 1987 was the year that resources used were at the max rate the earth could replenish them (heresay).

 

[DHDom]

global warming is total BS in reguards to humans causing it. its a natual cycle that the planet goes through from ice age to warmer conditions. now before you say we havent had an ice age scince the dinosaus. we've had little ones that haven had such a large impact as the dino one. and now we are coming out of a cooler period and walming back up

 

[Turley]

THanks for the imput DH dom, but I don't want this thread to become a " is global warming real?" thread. For the record, I agree that the increase in temperature could be part of the natural cycle. The huge increase in CO2 levels is not a part of the natural cycle.

 

[faith_rider]

I am studying a Bachelor of Environmental Management (Sustainable Development major) at uni so know and hear quite a bit about all sides of this argument and other serious environmental problems we face.

I don't wanna write a big rambling post so the key points I see are:

-Yes, warming and cooling are natural process's and sooner or later this current period of stable temperatures we are experiencing is going to come to an end...global warming or not.

-There are a lot of arguments for and against it's existence and I don't see any real steps being taken to actually do something about the problem.

-POPULATION IS THE KEY TO NEARLY EVERY PROBLEM WE FACE TODAY

-Look at the current QLD water crisis...we now simply have too many people trying to exploit a finite resource...what is going to happen when the current drought breaks, people stop caring about water again...and in 50 years we have an even worse drought...this time with 10million to supply water to???

-Who cares that we don't know what so much man made C02 is doing to our earth...look at the horizon at sunset and you can see that whatever it is it's not good...

-An equally big concern in my opinion (as alluded to in the original post) are the social consequences of our use of natural resources.

-Firstly, oil money finances terrorism. Secondly...we already have wars to some extent over oil control...how long before we are in a world war over timber? or fish? or coal? or WATER?

-Imagine 20 years time when oil costs $5 a litre...we are still so dependent on it and China (who now has a huge demand due to their population and economic growth) is in a major war with the US over control of oil fields.....food for thought....

-I believe those reasons alone..and the environmental ones...are enough to justify the beginning of our phase in to alternate energy RIGHT NOW.

-Oh one more thing, with regards to population growth in Africa being so major...consider this...the pollution and waste produced by one person in a developed country is the same amount as 30 people in a developing country over a lifetime...

My 2c...feel free to pick holes in my arguments and give your thoughts...

Before I go...some highly reccomened viewing: (just torrent them)

* 'Addicted to Oil' - Thomas L Friedman
* 'Green: The new red, white and blue' - Thomas L Friedman
* 'The great global warming swindle'
* 'Megacities - Sao Paulo' (our governments could learn a lot about green ethics from theirs...)

Cheers

 

[Customjimmy]

global warming is total BS in reguards to humans causing it. its a natual cycle that the planet goes through from ice age to warmer conditions. now before you say we havent had an ice age scince the dinosaus. we've had little ones that haven had such a large impact as the dino one. and now we are coming out of a cooler period and walming back up

Oh for crying out loud.

 

[jjperko]

As Above. You're point about natural heating and cooling of the earth may have some support, but do you really think all the shit we pump into the sky just disappears without any impact?

The dinosaurs didn't drive cars or inhale smoke combined with addictive substances (why the fuck do we do that anyway? its just such a weird thing for humans to decide to do.)

Anyway by the time global warming starts crippling society I won't exist or care about it. The human race will do itself in in one way or another, its just a matter of time. Thats my pessimistic point of view.

 

[ajay]

The government needs to stop handing out incentives for "little miracles"...

Renewable energy needs to be introduced, at whatever financial or cosmetic cost. (BTW I think wind farms actually look quite nice!)

The cost of usage of non renewable resources, like water, needs to be more strictly regulated - possibly an increasing cost curve depending on your usage instead of a flat $$ per litre system?

I dont know...

 

[Matt H]

The government needs to stop handing out incentives for "little miracles"...

Renewable energy needs to be introduced, at whatever financial or cosmetic cost. (BTW I think wind farms actually look quite nice!)

The cost of usage of non renewable resources, like water, needs to be more strictly regulated - possibly an increasing cost curve depending on your usage instead of a flat $$ per litre system?

I dont know...

On the subject of wind farms, I get really angry when I hear people complaining about how noisy and unsightly they are. You look at a big green field with wind turbines everywhere and then think how much worse of the nearby inhabitants would be if someone came in and whacked a big dirty coal fired power plant in instead...

end rant

 

[LTR]

I must say, I am very excited about the future... so many changes... I have faith in mankind through intellegence and technology. Its like a story with no ending, yet! Bloody exciting.

Renewable Energy is a must.
Public education and awareness is a must regarding global warming and other worldwide environmental problems.
Governments and world leaders need to think more sustainably regarding their policies.
Mankind is WAY too selfish; It needs to think more sustainably for future generations.

I laugh hysterically at people who believe Global Warming is not occuring.

 

[MasterOfReality]

Global warming is happening, no doubt about it but I get the impression everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and the hysteria is a direct result of this.

What I want to know is considering humans have only been industrialised for a couple hundred years, are we really drastically speeding up a process that takes hundreds of thousands of years between ice ages?

 

[Kram]

We've already exceeded temperatures that have ever occurred over the last 650,000 years (over which period there have been a significant number of natural ice age/warming cycles).

So, indeed, right now we are out of the natural order of things. Unless things start cooling as of this afternoon, I think we are in a spot of trouble. And it's difficult to see how we can halt or reverse this unless there is a significant population decline.

 

[Knight]

We've already exceeded temperatures that have ever occurred over the last 650,000 years (over which period there have been a significant number of natural ice age/warming cycles).

Ice age and warming cycles. Fine, they've happened in the past and will continue to do so. Global temperature and CO2 levels correspond to each other. During the ice age, CO2 drop. So...in theory, the higher the warming cycle and therefore higher CO2 levels, the ice age will be greater duration and severity.

Now looking at the length of previous ice age and warming cycles, in geological terms, we're getting fairly close to another ice age. CO2 is going to go off the charts (take a look at An Inconvenient Truth for an idea) in a short time and whilst temperatures may not follow it as closely, the next ice age may be a lot longer and colder than the ones in the last 650 000 years.

I think renewable, clean (as possible) energy is the key. Our usage rate of oil, coal etc is higher than its regeneration so we will run out of it. As has already been said, our consumption has been increasing. Sooner or later, we will need to develop another form of energy creation. The sooner we start, the more we will refine it for when it becomes the primary source and hopefully not destroy the environment for as long.

 

[Oliver.]

Thank you! Excellent thread. I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that global warming is a population issue.

I think it was briefly mentioned in another thread which ended up turning into an argument about ice and its expansion when it melts...or something, so I'll say it again.

Not saying anything against the real effects of global warming, but the big answer is simply controlling population. It's the REAL inconvenient truth; because its something we cannot do anything about. you go and turn off your office lights, that will simply counterract the next 20,000 humans added to the earth every X hours. It might not even get us anywhere.

Oh and the other thing, slightly ironic, but scientists have found that we are currently in a fairly "cool" stage in the Earth's life cycle. In the past, there was never really such thing as a "North Pole". We are still recovering from the last ice age!

So Global warming is bad for us, not so much because its a drastic shift FROM the norm, but moreso a fast change BACK TO the norm.
Walk outside and that chill you feel is still remanant from an ice age. We were slowly, now much more quickly, shifting back toward whats a normal temperature for the earth. The only problem is, if we do it too fast we might (even more ironically) plunge into another ice age.

 

[Knight]

Oh and the other thing, slightly ironic, but scientists have found that we are currently in a fairly "cool" stage in the Earth's life cycle. In the past, there was never really such thing as a "North Pole". We are still recovering from the last ice age!

Where was did you get that information from? Not trying to be difficult but I'm intrigued.

 

[Oliver.]

sorry, now posted a grappph, Can't remember where I got it from though
I first heard of the concept in a book I was reading then had a bit of a look into it.

 

[Turley]

Off-topic - Thats realy cool, the ice age periods appear, from my limited experience with fossils, to correspond with periods which resulted in some of the largest fossil beds! - end off topic

The global 'cool' period is apparently part of the natural cycle where, the ocean temps are lower resulting in less evaporation resulting in less rain on our continent, and more importantly less snow in the mountains and global ice caps. This results in the annual melting of glaciers not being replenished by snow fall each year resutling in the "melting of the ice caps." This is part of the natural cycle. Cool little system I reckon!

What isn't part of the natural cycle is the huge CO2 levels in our atmosphere. The CO2 levels are directly proportional to not only human population, but human consumption of energy! A by product of human population and consumption of energy is the destruction of the forests of the planet further increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Thankfully, these days greenhouse affect isn't the topic, global warming is, perhaps energy consumption implications is next?

 

[GravityGuru]

Watched "who killed the electric car" last night. Recommended viewing!! As for global warming, Bring on the mad max style mayhem I say!