Global cooling: Antarctic Sea Ice Coverage Continues To Break Records
Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 9 years, 11 months ago to Science
Global cooling: Antarctic Sea Ice Coverage Continues To Break Records
What’s up with that? Square peg meet round hole…?
Also, I believe that ice sheets that are already “floating” on the sea can’t melt or break away and change sea levels. They are already displacing their weight on the sea. Volume works hand in hand. Ice floats because water's volume expands when frozen, unlike most other substances. I’m pretty sure I learned that in basic science class in elementary school…
Glad to have you aboard. :)
O.A.
Definitely. I read it when it first came out. I think I should pull it from the shelf and review it.
As always, Thank you for your informed, expert input.
Regards,
O.A.
And yet, the kool-aid drinkers will still swallow the "party line".
"But while eastern areas of Antarctica are growing rapidly, scientists are warning that the continent’s western ice sheet has begun to collapse."
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So the eastern sheets are growing, but the western sheets are melting? Hmmmm, I wonder... are they doing so at the same rate? If not, which one is changing more rapidly, and how is that affecting the total ice volume? Even if the eastern sheets are growing, if the western sheets are melting at rate which exceeds the growth of the eastern sheets, the total volume of ice as a whole still could be going down. But if both sets of sheets are changing at the same rate, and the total volume of ice is remaining constant, that opens up a different discussion — what's causing the temperature of the South Pole to shift eastwards? Does the pole shift hypothesis have some level of application here?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_shift_...
One of the biggest factors behind poverty today is an insufficient amount of usable land for people to live on, and Antarctica is the only continent left where no one has bothered to establish an independent nation, and is almost completely untouched by the effects of long term industrialization and environmental exploitation. If this continent were to become suitable for human habitation, we could move a bunch of people there and start a new nation, or maybe several new nations, and the problems associated with over-population would be significantly alleviated without reducing the population.
Oh, and by "environmental exploitation" I simply mean the act of tapping into and using the resources of the environment. I don't mean to imply that there's anything wrong with harvesting said resources, because I don't think there is (as long as reasonable and rational regulations are put in place, of course), but I can't think of another term to effectively describe the concept.
Potential problems could be that if the ice caps do melt, then the sea levels would obviously rise and push in the coastlines of all the continents, which would reduce the world's total amount of usable land, even in Antarctica. Plus, the nations at the equator would get hotter, and may potentially become unlivable deserts like the Sahara, which could also reduce the amount of usable land.
But that's all operating under the assumption that the Earth's overall average temperature is actually rising. If the temperature is not rising but rather remaining constant, and if the pole shift hypothesis has both merit and application here – and I'm not sure that it does, but bear with me for just a moment – that could possibly mean that the southern icecap is not actually melting at all, but simply shifting eastwards (western edge melts, eastern edge freezes and expands), meaning that the continent of Antarctica could actually moving out of the uninhabitable "frozen zone" (or rather that the uninhabitable frozen zone is moving off of Antarctica). If this is the case, then we wouldn't have to worry about the icecaps melting and raising the sea levels, because the southern icecap would still be exactly the same size as it is now, but would simply be located to the east of Antarctica instead of directly on top of it. No idea what will happen with the northern icecap, though. Maybe it will move westward into Northern Canada?
Anyway, the point is that previously inaccessible land would become available for human colonization, with no native or indigenous population to worry about. Sure, some nations may currently lay claim to certain areas of Antarctica, but that can be resolved with treaties. If the global environment changed enough to where Antarctica became suitable for human habitation, the implications would be profound.
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Who owns Antarctica?
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antar...
But - the concept of opening up more land for habitation and farming is definitely reasonable. I would just look to Siberia and Canada first, for a huge amount of area, without near as much climate change (or time) needed - plus easier connection via roads and less distance to current
population areas.
As Mark Twain famously said... whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over. My worry isn't really the loss of coastline or whatever, I'm looking at it from the dramatic human events that will occur as we fight over resources during the shifts that take place. As the US, we will be front & center to every conflict. Most of it will be over water.
Some good objective comments.
Whether Earth is actually warming may still be a matter of debate. Many respectable climatologists question the methodology and bias associated with the common reports. That said: There is much to be said about the potential benefits to humanity of a warmer earth. http://www.climatedepot.com/?s=warmer+ea...
Regards,
O.A.
The same climate deniers also tend to use that as a link to how petroleum is endless... it's not... the US passed peak oil production in about 1979, as much of the world did. You used to be able to pump it out of your backyard, now you have to go to the ends of the earth and its a hell of a lot harder to extract. When I started driving my first car, gas (premium) was 81 cents a gallon. Inflation may be some of that, but the minimum wage was $3.35 / hr... now its around $9.00, but gas is $4.29'ish in my area (for cheap stuff), a 525% increase, versus around a 270% inflationary adjustment.
We have an EV in the family (a Volt) not so much because I am some Prius-type creep, but because it is cool looking and its a lot more efficient to do the grocery getting than to drive my Nissan Armada's 5.6L down the street (which gets like, 14 mpg on a good day). We drive the Volt around 12,000 miles a year and our electric bill maybe went up $6 / month. (and before I hear it about the power-plants, 70% of my house power comes from solar), so in the most expensive electric market in the country, we spend like $1 to drive 170 miles.... versus about $52.93 for the Armada to do the same... so its about efficiency and doing things a better way that is incidentally better for the US to not buy as much oil from people that don't like us.
I'm not a big lover of fracture drilling... I know its important to our security, but I'm expecting the other shoe to drop on that stuff, and it's not "doable" at less than about $3.50 a gallon at the pump anyway.
Can I tow a boat or anything with the Volt? No, and I probably wouldn't take it on a 700 mile road trip either, but for 80% of the driving needed, it works fine. I'm a strong advocate for conservation more than anything else I suppose, It's not realistic to think otherwise.
So SolarCity put solar panels on my house for $0. I buy the power from them for half what the going rate is on the PG&E bill, and that turns into fuel for the car in the garage, which will only need a couple of oil changes in its life, the battery is completely recyclable, and the only reason we use premium in the thing is because the generator runs so little that the 8-gallon fill up tends to last 6 to 8 months in it. I don't miss going to the gas station & dealing with that.
Oil doesn't move society forward in terms of space exploration, we need post-petroleum forms of energy for that. For pretty much everything beyond planes & cars, we need a post-petroleum fuel source... I see it as the right thing to do, that is also economically more attractive.
I have no problem with private use of alternative energy. I believe we should explore and develop all alternatives. I object to government suppression of what works. I object to pseudo science pushed on all of us and the propaganda from those that think oil and other traditional power sources can't be used efficiently and clean enough. As far as the "peak oil' story goes, it was based on our capabilities to get at the easy to access reserves known at the time with the technology of the time. Since then our new methods and discoveries, thanks to better technology, have created doubt about how long we will be able to use these resources and how much there is. We were told we would be out of oil by now many decades ago. Since then we have discovered vastly more retrievable resources. I started buying gas for my car when it was around 56 cents a gallon and I remember filling my father's car at 26 cents per gallon.
Auto emissions have been reduced at least 95 percent since the seventies. http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/05-auto...
There is also some interesting work being done that purports that the earth is constantly making oil; that it is not a finite resource at all; that it is being replenished. this is why some are going back to old abandoned fields in some locals and finding once dry wells are reproducing. Investigate "Abiotic Oil."
I don't know the truth of this theory but one thing is certain; The oil companies can rob us and jack up the prices if they have us convinced we are about to run out….
Abiotic or Abiogenic oil:
Some interesting sites… Again, I do not know the answer and it appears, neither do all of the experts. Though some claim to and you can find sites that say otherwise. I believe the science is unsettled enough to have doubt.
http://www.viewzone.com/abioticoil.html
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/on-e...
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questio...
Even Huffington has produced articles…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-...
Solar panel manufacturing is also not without harmful side effects, neither are batteries even if they are recyclable.
We may not need to destroy our economy to avoid man made disaster.
Respectfully,
O.A.
Regarding reentering old fields, this is easily and accurately explained otherwise. While the earth is still producing oil, it doesn't happen in the human time frame. For practical purposes, oil is finite, but there's still quite a bit left, and as long as you're willing to pay for it we'll keep producing it for the next century or so. I predict something better will come along before we run out.
True, but I have always had a an uneasy feeling regarding the 'fossil fuel theory" as the origin of these vast seas of underground carbon based fuels. It just doesn't sound any more plausible that multitudes of plants and animals piled up in particular locales, than it does to imagine it being created from the elements on earth by the earth's natural forces. As one contributing commenter in the following link suggests, no one questions the origin of diamond/diamindoids...
http://amlibpub.blogspot.com/2006/12/is-...
The story of Eugene Island and its voluminous production after once being drained is of particular fascination. Of course, it could be easily explained as oil simply seeping back into the once depleted zone...
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/26/scienc...
One other thing of note: I know it is anecdotal, but back in the early eighties I ran an oil field machine shop in the Anadarko basin. I was told that it was common knowledge that many productive wells were being drilled and capped without extraction. The reported reasons were two fold; the wells that were not gushers would require the cost of pumping and for national security reasons we were buying middle eastern cheap oil in order to insure that the U.S. would always be the last to have oil in reserve in case of war etc., based on the belief of the time (Peak Oil- fossil origin) that the resource was finite...
Food for thought...
Thank you for your excellent contributions.
Respectfully,
O.A.
Are the changes caused by human action? To this the answer is, based on REAL evidence, NO!
I would like to add, that pollution is not good to the health of living creatures, i.e. cyanide gasses being released, or toxic chemical gasses, but Co2, BAH, I challenge anyone calming the thing I exhale that all plants use, is a pollutant.
Taking on pollution is one thing, but the entire premise of Man Caused Climate change is a false premise.
I so enjoy it when you guys are having good-natured banter. Smiles are free! Without them the days wouldn't be the same.
I always take life with a grain of salt... plus a slice of lemon... and a shot of tequila.
Regards,
O.A.
Maph asks,
" if the western sheets are melting at rate which exceeds the growth of the eastern sheets, "
The key word is 'if'. Check it, do not rely on wikipedia. Answer- if=does not.
But, there is an active volcano under the western area. Is=there exists
I think it is hubris incarnate to say that with less than 100 years of extensive climate data (and much of that of questionable veracity) that we could pretend to predict future patterns.
My point is that many proponents of AGW seem to think that they know enough about an incredibly complex system to be able to predict an outcome. The fact that meteorologists are only even close about 1/2 the time indicates that we still have a LONG way to go before we can make such an authoritative claim.
It's quite a bit too late to deny the global warming (and acceleration) phenomenon... here in California, it's May, and we're at 6-8% (total) humidity, and in a fire season in May that resembles what our late summer September/October used to look like a few years ago... for those in other parts of the country, realize, we're at 8% humidity already, and we won't get a drop of rain between June & November...
being heated from the bottom. The three oceans
are also, but they are huge and deep compared to the much shallower and smaller Arctic Sea. There is an active mid-Arctic seafloor ridge, with hydrothermal vents lava/volcanic activity. This
will result in some degree of ice melt, depending on the flux of this activity. Richard, geologist.
that said, it is all about MONEY. All governments want some all of the universities want some and of course the "un" wants some. you can stand on mount Everest with a bull horn telling all of the warming people that it is time to wake up and you will have wasted your breath.
read "the cooling" by Lowell Ponte, published in 1976 and you will read about all of what the earth has experienced since then. it is to the weather what atlas is to our society.
I am constantly AMAZED at the wealth of complete IGNORANCE, people, especially scientists have when it comes to this topic. Does ANYONE read and understand the laws of Physics. Buoyancy and Archimedes' Principal are proven FACTS not opinions. These are axioms, not theories. These bleeding heart squirrel kissing ignoramuses tout their "belief" i.e. religion with the same fervor that the Jihadists tout Mohammed. they cry fact when their fact is all in their head with NO physical proof at all, and a bunch of scientists so afraid of their dogmatic peers they will use outcome based statistics to "prove" their theories which turns them all into nothing but religious zealots. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! THIS IS BASIC PROVEN SCIENCE 101!!! Melting Ice WILL NOT RAISE OCEAN LEVELS!!!
Now, mind you, the fact that there is petroleum there is evidence that the poles were once tropical or at least organically covered. You need plants & animals to fossilize to create oil... but the danger is the pace at which this is occurring compared to previous geologic terms (a hundred years or so compared to millions of years). There is no way wildlife or crops/plants will adapt, and there is no way that we'll have much of a chance at slowing it down.
Ironically, NASA's plan for terraforming Mars is exactly what we did to the Earth... build some baker-plants that harvest the crap out of the ground and burn it in ways that release massive carbon dioxide & monoxide and warm the planet... :) We know how to do that now at least...
Lets see. Where to begin...
First I am so glad you got to actually go there.
Second the highest recorded temperature in Antarctica which by the way holds 90% of all ice and snow, was 7 degrees F over the past 32 years.
Now, What temperature does ice melt? That would be higher than 32 Degrees F. What temperature does Sea Ice melt? Hrm...that is a bit harder but closer to 30 Degrees F depending on the PPM of Salt. Now that leave a disparity of 27 degrees.
Now please explain to me how and why you buy into Antarctica Glaciers melting.
Next if you look at the "Scientific Data" from ice core samples, that "Scientifically" date back hundreds of thousands of years, temperatures have not been high enough to melt Antarctica.
So again I ask you to explain why you "believe" and belief is not proof that the Glaciers in Antarctica will melt.
Next, as mentioned Antarctica holds 90% of all ice and snow on the planet. the remaining 10% is north. Of that 10%, 90% of that is floating ice, and Archimedes principal PROVES that the arctic floating ice will NOT cause oceans to rise. Now please explain to me scientifically and with PROOF< via physics not theory and junk science that your right?
We're also talking geologic spans of I'me, I wouldn't go out and invest in real estate at a 12 foot elevation level just yet in anticipation that it would be beachfront property in my lifetime, but the effects of even a couple of degrees are noticeable and predictable. In the north where I grew up, extreme cold tended to reduce precipitation levels, now that the winters are noticeably milder than when I was a child, there is quite a bit more snowfall and has led to a lot of flooding... "100 year floods" every 5 or 6 years now it seems along the Red River for example.
Ever seen 6 & 8% humidity along the Pacific coast in May? There is no previous record of that in over a hundred years. California grows the lion's share of US produce and agriculture.. no one else even comes close... it's 50% of California's economy, and the California economy is the 8th largest in the world. If we seceded from the US, the US would fall to number 5 or 6, and we would still be number 8. We have zero water in the Central Valley, reservoirs were at 30% of normal as late as March and only with some snow-melt now they are coming up to less than 50% when we would have been releasing water down streams a decade or so ago (even during a drought). This means the California crop will be negligible this year... expect prices of a salad, fruit, vegetables, nuts, grapes, wine, citrus, etc/ to go up quite a bit this fall...
I've lived in California for 20 years, and yesterday was the first time I've seen 95 degrees in the Sierras and 105+ in Southern Cal this early in the year. By mid summer, we're looking at 120+ degree days. That's never happened before. The point is, we are now setting new all-time records, seemingly year after year without much of a break in between. As recent as 1990, Cal Fire seasonal fire fighting was a 5 month a year job (literally). Now its year-round with massive overtime. The temperatures are 15 degrees warmer in spring & winter, easily, and a lot hotter in the summer.
Slight temperature changes will alter ocean current patterns, the ocean conveyors are pretty much the driver of climate on Earth. Cold water from the poles is circulated into the tropics which moderates their high temps, and in turn pushes some warm water back to the poles to keep them navigable to ships or we would eventually have a snowball Earth thing... (which has happened many times before). Freshwater is quite a bit lighter than saltwater, and it will be happening at the poles. If it disrupts the conveyor patterns a little, the hurricanes coming out of the tropics and tornadoes in the southeast US will get stronger and stronger without the cold air to moderate out the hot air / hot water.
In Alaska, entire fishing towns have been washed away because the Bering Sea has risen about a foot, and that was basically all those strips of land were above water. Wood-boring beetles that don't survive below around 20 degrees, and the Alaskan forest was previously immune from (climatically), were wiped out when simple West Coast beetles migrated north about 10 years ago and the trees had no natural immunity to them, that's outside of Anchorage... thousands of square miles of dead / infested timber still standing.
I'm not a climate expert, but I'm closing in on 50, and I've seen these things in my lifetime. This is direct observation.
Am I saying head for the hills? No. I'm saying that the "deniers" of this stuff tend to be young kids that are still wet behind the ears, that don't understand the science very well, or small things that will have dramatic effects on our lives.
1) We are at the peak of a 100,000 year warming cycle
2) You cannot make any "reasonable" calculations, claim proof, or even forecast anything, when your sample quantity of data is on the verge of a mathematical zero.
3) 190 years / 800,000 is 0.000165
Refer to Core samples, here are some interesting scientific links to chew on. Again this is not opinion or "belief." and please note this data comes from NOAA.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/
BTW I am 50 also turned that in February. I, however, read and educate myself on "facts" not opinion and fads. I am not easily sucked into the latest "kewl" trend, and I also do not cave in out of fear when the majority think one way.
Doctors had to be pulled kicking and screaming to wash their hands before surgery after germs were discovered. This only meant the majority of people were wrong. Academia said the Earth was flat, and executed people who thought differently. Guess what. All the fools were the majority.
Global Warming, Climate change whatever want to call it are based on Bayesian analysis.
"The Bayesian analyses can be “cooked” to produce results consistent with any point of view, because Bayesian analyses quantify prior personal beliefs and mix them with the data." Dennis, B. (n.d.). [Abstract]. STATISTICS and the SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN ECOLOGY,
California has fire issues in part because controlled deforestation is so highly regulated the BLM has created a massive fire hazard. Government is the problem...
http://news.discovery.com/earth/india-is...
Ever think maybe the oceans are not really rising but the coast line is sinking?
Look up and read about Mantle Convection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqp_TbIZ...
So if you jump off a building are you falling? or is the earth rising to meet you? Depends on who you want to blame for your death. My bet is Alaska coast is slipping down due to mantle convection, not the rise of the oceans
It's been very interesting to read this ongoing debate, I must give you an unqualified win. Your opponent gave away his mistaken approach to the subject when he stated, "I'm saying that the "deniers" of this stuff tend to be young kids that are still wet behind the ears, that don't understand the science very well, or small things that will have dramatic effects on our lives." No, it's the youngsters that are daily being brainwashed by the liberal progressives.
Fred Speckmann
mailto:commonsenseforamericans@yahoo.com
You could grow on me.
The reason northern hemisphere ice is melting and southern hemisphere ice is spreading is Milankovitch. Milankovitch was confirmed by ice cores taken in Greenland and taught when I was in school. It is scrupulously avoided in school now, probably because it makes the theory of anthropogenic global warming look ridiculous.
Columbus was off by 5,000 miles.
You are correct, Columbus was wrong, but only about how far it was to reach India, but that's only because he ran into a gigantic landmass. his principle of the earth being round and being able to reach India by sailing west was correct.
Fred Speckmann
mailto:commonsenseforamericans@yahoo.com
Lets also not forget the total laughable humor when the "Climate Scientists" got stuck in the massive amount of ice they said would not be there and had to be rescued.
The things you mention are predicted by Milankovitch. Milankovitch has been verified by ice cores going back almost half a million years and other geologic records going back millions of years. The planet's tilt varies cyclically. We're at the point in the three cycles such that the northern hemisphere receives more than normal amounts of solar energy and the southern hemisphere receives less than normal amounts of solar energy. Thus glaciers in North America are retreating at the same time glaciers on New Zealand's south island are advancing and the advance of Antarctic pack ice is setting records. If this were due to excess CO2 they'd have to be moving in the same direction (due to gas diffusion, the thing that allows us to breath, no matter where on earth we are). Ever heard of Iceball Earth? The geologic record shows it's happened several times. Milankovitch shows the amount of sunlight we receive varies by almost 6% at the extremes of the cycles. Milankovitch isn't a theory. It's proven, geometric fact.
Decades ago, before anyone had heard of it, Maggie Thatcher used the theory of CO2 caused global warming to drop the hammer on the British coalworkers, but later said she regretted contributing to the hoopla, since she didn't really consider it a threat.
Are there no lakes, ponds or other landbound bodies of liquid water in the world?
It is not inevitable that the glaciers will run directly into the ocean.
Floating Ice would not raise levels when melted - but floating ice is not a glacier.
While glacier ice is still frozen to the glacier it might raise sea levels by the glacier motion "pushing" the leading edge ice into the sea and below the buoyancy point. When that edge breaks off it will float up and sea level would actually drop a bit.
Next please explain to me why Mars temperatures also fluctuate at the same rate the earth does?
What do you make of the geologic record of Greenland being much greener and less glaciated in the past?http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6653/20140418/icy-greenland-was-once-pretty-green-study-finds.htm
I understand it was so even as recently as the days of its discovery and purported settling of Vikings. http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/...
Respectfully,
O.A.
I lived in Pittsburgh, and vividly remember the smog in the early 1970's.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05...
Now look at the skyline.
http://pittsburghskyline.com/
This had NONTHING to do with the crackpots trying to redistribute wealth under the auspice of "Climate Protection."
Thank you for such a wonderful, exuberant contribution and your support!
Respectfully,
O.A.
Since you're into chemistry, can you explain gas diffusion to the doubters? Most of the Global Warming fanatics whom I meet claim the reason things seem warmer in the northern hemisphere and colder in the southern hemisphere is because we evil northern hemisperians emit most of the CO2. I've tried explaining gas diffusion, but very few Global Warmheads know anything about science. They don't accept that the chemical makeup of the atmosphere is nearly uniform, no matter where you are, that even if we are evil northern hemispherians, we can still breathe southern hemisphere air, and vice versa, because it's chemically identical.
Diffusion isn't fast enough to get efficient mixing of the atmosphere between the hemispheres, but convection is. Convection is the dominant mass trasnfer mechanism in this case. Convective heat transfer, however, is DWARFED by radiative heat transfer. That is one of the reasons why we have seasons.
HOWEVER, the chemical makeup of the atmosphere is nearly uniform (i.e. position-independent). For instance, the concentration of CFC-11 (freon) is virtually identical in Delaware (where it's manufactured), in Hawaii, and in Antarctica. I have the data in a PowerPoint presentation that David Shonnard gave me at a summer school for young chemical engineering faculty back in 2002.
The mixing time for pollutants within the atmosphere is significantly less than one year.
Thirty-five thousand page views and twenty-four hours later the whole world was buzzing with it. Phil Jones, he of "hide the decline" fame, was suspended with pay.
I don't care what anybody says. "Hide the decline" means "hide the decline." It means we have a decline to hide.
I'd recommend a trip to China... and see what it's like to cover your face with a mask to breath through it, get to where you are going in a quarter mile outside, and the white piece of cloth turned to charcoal...
Americans are pretty absurdly naive thinking that how it is here with the Clean Air & Clean Water Acts and California emissions controls are the same that is everywhere else.. it absolutely is not... I don't believe that "we" as Americans are as directly responsible at this point as we once were, but we are also rather powerless to control ourselves and think that we'll make an impact when China and the rest of Asia is going as fast as it can to wreck its environment.
Well, lets see. Break this down quite simply. You and everyone on this thread has electricity. YOU consume the product of the enterprise that produces. Be it polluting wildly, or not at all. Who should pay...simple the people who are consuming. Don't want cars polluting, stop buying cars and driving them. Don't want hydro-fluorocarbons, stop buying hairspray. When YOU stop consuming the producers will stop producing and the problem goes away.
Again capitalism works if the Government and those who want to try and legislate morality get out of the way.
Now how about thinking a little harder? Notice: I never once talked of leaving environmental protection in the hands of a quasi-legislative, quasi-judicial agency of the executive, that would therefore be legislator, judge and executive all rolled into one.
I propose legislating what "being left alone" means, what nuisances one ought not have to put up with from others' activities, and how to proceed to get redress. Such redress would be up to a court to decide. I'd rather have more courts than a tyrannical, self-accountable (meaning unaccountable) agency.
They are claiming "oops"... but you don't knowingly order specifically-diseased cattle that no one else will buy, slaughter it and get it on the truck quick on a Saturday or Sunday when the inspectors are off. Then file for bankruptcy when the billions in lawsuits come in.
Back when I was in investment banking... some of the product literature we developed... "mortgage approvals 1 day after foreclosure or bankruptcy!"... "520 Fico / 100% financing OK to $1 million"... "Stated Income / Stated Asset with a 620 Fico score to $1 million"... Does that really make any sense? You have to really try to get a 620 FICO... I mean.. it takes talent to beat it down that low and it's a consistent effort to not pay any bills on time. a 520? That's a couple of BK's in a 3 year period.
So, my point is, in a perfect world, people do the right thing, but in the real world they don't. Greed takes over, if there is no accountability to where you know the penalty is higher than the potential profit, and it is certain... then about half of people will do the wrong thing.
We know some things cause more pollution than others, I've heard the "clean coal" BS about as long as I can remember, and it still looks like tar coming out of a smoke stack. Natural gas burns clean, but its not as cheap... Nukes are no problem at all, but we're the Saudi Arabia of coal, so we keep trying to justify it to ourselves. China doesn't care.. heck they probably bathe newborns in the slag to toughen up the immune system for the beetles & live turtles they will eat for dinner.
I suggest a code of civil tort law setting forth all the things neighbor has the right to expect from neighbor--like not pouring paint thnner down the storm drain, for example. Then set up rules-of-court outlining who, as an individual or as a class, has standing to sue someone who willfully pollutes the air, land or water.
Too bad Ayn Rand never treated the subject of pollution. But we can.
Ooh, I want a piece of that class-action suit; imagine the take from suing nearly 7 billion people for breathing...
Again, why are your posts hidden? What did you do to offend the gods?
To put it succinctly, I caricatured a one-sentence "justification" an Objectivist pedophile might make for his behavior, based upon "trading value for value".
One of the moderators called me, and instead of requesting I remove the offending post, suckered me into leaving it and attempting to explain it as I explained on the phone, asserting he would step in to settle the matter once I did. He stepped in, alright.
I concede that I made my post when I was at a point where I'd been up for 20 hours (I work nights and hadn't been able to sleep), so my judgment was impaired, and the idea was generated by an episode of Law and Order SVU I'd been watching earlier where a pedophile made a similar attempt at justification. This doesn't mitigate the offense; I shouldn't have engaged in debate when my judgment was impaired by lack of sleep, like that. And I certainly shouldn't have listened to the
moderator.
In the middle of the firestorm, one of the offended members posted a comment linking to an extremely vile act of gang-rape by Moslems on young (underage) girls, which, in my opinion, was far more offensive than my one-line comment. After I was put in Coventry, I concluded that it wasn't that the statement was what gave offense, but the suggestion that Objectivists could be as hypocritical (or vile) as anybody else. Or rather, that hypocrites could hide behind Objectivism (to be more accurate).
The point I was making so badly was that there are moral considerations outside and beyond the Objectivist philosophy. I still believe this to be true.
And I still believe there are no unthinkable thoughts, because thinking an idea is not advocacy of an idea.
And that's the story from my point of view.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martia...
http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/06717...
I've seen a lot of measurable and dramatic changes, the pendulum swinging both ways.
Check your premise; a human lifetime is not long enough to be considered "climate"; and the idea of a global climate is an invented myth. The 6,000 year extent of recorded human history is hardly long enough to measure a "climate".
Last week the temperature went from 91 degrees during the day to 57 at night; that's in the course of less than 24 hours. The difference in temperature was 1/3 the value of the high temperature. Strangely enough, nobody screamed, "OMG! The world is coming to an end!"... Mostly the quiet, aggravated comments were on the order of, "Welcome to spring in OK" and "Aw, shit... that's going to fuel the tornadoes more."
That's because around here, we don't confuse weather with climate.
Your comment got me thinking; so many, look at things like this the same way they look at economics. Their analysis is as if these things are zero sum games. They do not consider all of the implications. I have wondered, since the earth's crust floats on a semi flexible mantle and shifts from time to time causing the most recognizable proofs like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, how do we know that when the weight of massive ice/glaciers on land is removed through melting that the earth does not rise in response? If for instance Greenland loses all of this weight could it not rise in reaction. If so then what would displace its rising form the sea? Perhaps the additional weight of the water could compress the sea floor and cause a resulting upheaval of surrounding land masses. Additionally, I wonder if there is an accounting for the continual increase in the mass of the earth and distribution of 5-300 metric tons of space dust daily. http://www.universetoday.com/94392/getti... This means the earth is continually growing, but the dispersal of this material is distributed to both land and sea. Either way, the globe is increasing in diameter and thus surface area for spreading out and dispersing potential increases of water...
Any thoughts?
Respectfully,
O.A.
Ask any geologist, it's called overburden and it compresses whatever's underneath it. Remove the overburden and whatever's underneath decompresses. Additionally, we've been able to raise or lower ground level by injecting fluids into or producing fluids from deeper formations (see Ekofisk or check out the Texas Gulf Coast).
I posit some of our disagreements and misunderstandings about climate come from misusing the terms "weather" and "climate". We think of weather as what happens this week and climate as what happens this year. We should think of weather as what happens this decade and climate as what happens this decimillenia.
Geologic history shows warmer climates raise sea levels and impact coastlines, not a few feet, but hundreds of feet, at the extremes. If humans are still around when our climate warms again they'll be forced to move inland (or Manhattan's doormen will be opening doors on the 26th floors). Milankovitch calculations, confirmed by geologic history, have us moving into a long term cooling cycle. Coastal encroachment isn't likely to be an issue for at least 20,000 years.
Geology is science. Global Warming is religion.
Excellent info. and confirmation of some of what I suspected. I find it quite interesting and indisputable that the geologic record shows such extreme differences in sea levels and changing shorelines prior to the industrial age or possible impact of man. How much of these shore line changes are due to advancing and retreating of past ice ages and how much is due to other factors like land mass changes since the time of Pangaea and before? The answers to these questions must also be weighed in the balance. Our planet has always had climate change. It is anthropogenic climate change (our ability to destroy or repair) that I question, particularly when it comes to CO2 emissions.
Now, pollution is another matter. I would not wish to live in Bejing from what we have witnessed. If America's major cities were all polluting like that I have no doubt we could be harming humanities ability to thrive, but Earth will be here long after humanity.
It has been demonstrated that richer industrial nations can and will clean their environment and reduce emissions. I find regulation that would inhibit growth then to be counterproductive.
Respectfully,
O.A.
Agreed... we damn well better have moved elsewhere. The Earth is too small and volatile a basket for us to have deposited all of our eggs.
I quite agree. We must explore space and find a way to plant our seed out there. What has happened to our space program and particularly what has happened recently with Russia is very troubling.
Respectfully,
O.A.
If they're really so worried about globular warming, start a massive campaign to Terraform Mars, Venus, maybe some of the moons of Jupiter... build some L5-type habitats in orbit, closed ecosystems... freaking learn how ecologies work *before* tinkering with our only life-support system.
I agree re pollution. I remember going to a drive in movie in LA (I know, it was awhile ago) and after the movie thinking, as I dusted the atmospheric soot off the car, this is what we're breathing? Those who say they'd get rid of the EPA forget: along with the outrageous encroachments on private property and mission creep, the EPA has done good things.
Incidentally, seawater reinjection is a viable means of protecting the Gulf Coast lowlands from encroaching seawater. We could raise the level of Louisiana's disappearing marshland, although the reason it's disappearing is because the Corps of Engineers diverted the Mississippi River. Whether we could elevate Miami, I'm not sure, I don't know the geology. I don't know whether we could elevate New York or California and I'm not really interested in trying.
The two left coasts... :)
"". . . Then, beginning in the 1950s, we began to clean up our environment. Household coal furnaces gave way to centralized electric heating; and pollution was confined to the power plant areas, instead of belching from every chimney in the city. The famous pea-soup fogs of London disappeared."
....
""Yes, my friends." Lutenist was walking back and forth in front of the piano. "The elimination of air pollution did not start with the Greens. It started with the Big Power Companies back in the fifties-—as a by-product of their program of clean, centralized electrical power generation."
I'm not citing that as authoritative. It's just until I read it years ago I hadn't thought of it as the real source for pollution reduction in the U.S.
This is why the EPA is evil:
---
""I've lost track of my cup," Alex said.
"In the old days," Sherrine whispered in Alex's ear, "there would have been plastic or styrofoam cups."
"Nonbiodegradable plastic or styrofoam cups," said Degler, appearing out of nowhere.
"Bullshit," said Sherrine. "Plastics are recyclable. Shred it and melt it and make more. The fact that no one bothered gave plastic a bad rep."
"Well, not quite," Degler said, fingering his beard and grinning. "There are EPA rules that forbid the recycling of certain plastics. The styrofoam used by fast-food chains was chemically recyclable; but the EPA forbade it because"-—he gave an exaggerated shudder-—"because it had once touched food."
"Yeah, and they replaced the stuff with coated paper, that was also nonbiodegradable and nonrecyclable. So the rules had zero impact on the environment and the landfills . . . And why are you laughing, Tom?"
"What if it was on purpose?"
"What do you mean? "
...
Degler glanced left and right, and leaned forward. Everyone else instinctively leaned toward him. "I meant, what if it was on purpose? There was a company in California that bought chemical wastes from other companies; processed the waste and broke it down; and sold the end products as feed stock. Closed loop recycling. The state EPA shut them down."
"Why?" asked Alex.
Degler eyed him, and again glanced conspiratorially around the room. "Because the EPA rules required that chemical wastes be put in fifty-five-gallon drums and stored."
"Why, that is pomyéshanniy," Gordon said. "If we did so on Freedom, would soon die. Cannot afford to waste waste. Is too valuable."
If the Downer Greens were serious about recycling and waste reduction, Alex mused, they should be clamoring to communicate with the stations. Who-—on Earth or off-—knew more about the subject than the Floaters. It isn't just our quality of life, it's our lives.
"Exactly," said Degler. "So why do so many environmental regulations wind up, harming the environment? I say, what if it's on purpose?"
"Can't be," said someone in the crowd. "What purpose?"
"Yeah, who would gain?"
"The Babbage Society? "
"No, the Greens. The Greens would gain job security," said someone else.
"Job security how? They're pledged to clean things up."
"No they aren't," said Tom Degler with a grin. "They're pledged to advocate rules whose apparent purpose is to make someone else clean things up."
"That's right. There's a difference. The rules only require actions, not results."
"I have a question," said an elderly fan. "Why did the Greens become so popular back in the '90s, which was after the worst pollution had been already cleaned up? None of you kids remembers the old days, when coal smoke blanketed every city and the Cuyahoga River caught fire."
----
My dad was Mobil's first environmental engineer, and his job at that time was to ensure that what the politicians wanted was actually something that could be achieved. They could not afford to let the politicians draft legislation that no one could comply with.
Environmental responsibility has its place, and frankly it doesn't cost all that much if done properly. It is just this global warming (CO2 is a pollutant?! Cough! Cough! on my own exhalation!) The engineer's oath interestingly is to the general public, not to him/herself, the company, the client, etc., and is therefore incompatible with Galt's oath.
I could have used teraseconds and megaanums, but nobody'd be able to figure them out. The basic idea is in short time periods our "weather" is affected greatly by solar forcing, but over much longer time periods our "climate" is determined by Milankovitch Cycles. We have no means of affecting the sun's levels of activity nor our distance from the sun nor the tilt of our planet. Our weather and climate will change, whether we wish them to or not.
One word comes to mind - Venice. Venice has been sinking into the sea for centuries, and the Venetians adapted.
Few drilling rigs, some big pumps and I could fix that. Just a matter of money.
BTW, why are your comments hidden? Have you broken Gulch rules or offended the powers that be?
So I remain in Coventry.
You're in good company, Bruno, Galileo, Socrates...oops. Can they execute you in The Gulch for saying the wrong thing?
Plus, croplands that replace jungle increase the albedo of the planet, contributing to "global cooling".
I like to use that as an argument of, "... but look how bad it would be if it *weren't* for the activities of Man!"
Fascinating. I have often wondered what the mass of plant life on earth is and how it could effect CO2 Levels... I once asked an online site where you could pose your science questions for an approx. measurement of plant life on earth expecting to receive a value quoted in _ _ _ _metric tons, but the reply I got was snarky and treated me as an idiot ... it was something like... That is a ridiculous question. You might as well ask how many blades of grass bla bla bla. Needless to say I never revisited that site.
Respectfully,
O.A.
Actually, simple concepts, but a complex system. Melting glacial ice, if allowed to flow into the sea would cause ocean levels to rise and affect seawater salinity. Melting pack ice will have no effect on ocean levels.
Re the Sacramento Delta, ask landowners in the Delta area about their water wells. Is their water level dropping? Have they had to deepen wells? Subsidence can be caused by removing large volumes of fluid from porous underground formations. If Delta landowners are pumping fresh water out of the ground faster than it can be replenished then they might be causing the subsidence that allows salty water to encroach on formerly fresh water environments. On the other hand, plate tectonics is an ongoing process. Land levels are rising and falling all around the world independent of sea levels. Over the past few decades I've seen no sea level change measured at my data points. So, if sea levels are rising, my data points are rising at the same rate; possible, but unlikely.
Good point. The oceans are connected and water will seek its own level. I have been vacationing in the Florida Keys for decades. The little islands I visit were supposed to be under water by now according to the experts of a few decades ago. So far... nothing appreciable or extraordinary...
Respectfully,
O.A.
I appreciate what you are saying regarding pollution in another comment of yours and also the problem of brackish water and shoreline changes, but haven't these occurrences happened many time in the geologic record before the industrial age?
Certainly the fish and wildlife, (man included), can adapt. If these events occurred without human intervention in the past yet these animals still exist , is not the proof prima facie?
I am not disputing the wisdom of reducing harmful pollutants as we have done here, only the absolutist position on CO2 emissions that evidence shows have been at greater levels in the past both during warmer and colder periods.
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/05/14/c...
http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_M...
Respectfully,
O.A.
Check your premise.