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The Great Climate Debate »
Posted by: Eagle_Eye 2 years, 7 months agoHow can we protect the planet for our children? Finally, an unbiased look at the latest research on global warming. Plus: Tips for leading a climate-friendly life.
Read Full Story at aarpmagazine.org »
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Eagle_Eye
I am a female who has lived a complex life with complex situations and have learned a lot from my experiences.
I love the Environment ...
This Story is Archived and Commenting is Closed
Comments: 132
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Eagle_Eye
June 5, 2007, 7:31 p.m."I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
The year? 1931. The speaker? Thomas Edison.
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capn_caveman
June 5, 2007, 7:34 p.m.I'm redirecting this story as the original submission led to the front page of the AARP magazine's website.
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catstevensComment has been removed: User banned.
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Eagle_Eye
June 5, 2007, 7:49 p.m.Hi friends, I've been on vacation with my hubby in Jamaica, good to be back.
While in Jamaica I realized they were having a rainy season like Florida use to. The reason I believe for this happening is that Jamaica still has a lot of wild areas and tree canopy where here in Florida they have bull dozed it over.
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not2needy
June 5, 2007, 9:02 p.m.From the article:
Solar power is widely seen as the sole alternative energy source that is abundant enoughâ;;and someday could be cheap enough))
What i don't understand is why isn't solar power made affordable to the average person, with fossil fuels used as the alternative? I guess the sun is free, fossil fuels aren't,, so yet again we go back to the rich getting richer!
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agentX
June 5, 2007, 9:33 p.m."But the current warming trend is happening much faster than previous hot spells, says McConnell, and none of the forces that usually affect climateâ;;such as variations in the sun's strengthâ;;are in sync with this recent change."
This is the nature of the problem- Humans are altering the climate when the climate is already changing at its own predictable pace. It's like dumping a ton of napalm on a firepit.
And yet, SUVs are still being made and sold. And China is still burning chuncks of coal to run small factories. It's pathetic, but at least, not hopeless.
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ameliog
June 5, 2007, 10:07 p.m.hey EE, can anyone join this discussion or just you and N2N? ;)
Thanks for posting this and capn too for the extra link. People who look outside of just one tv cable channel or talk radio can find supporting documentation for climate change as you have, all they have to do is make the effort to look.
Countries all over the world as well as governments and industries large and small are actively engaging in this discussion, and we know governments don't move toward any significant changes unless they have to. It ain't just one politician with a laptop hypnotizing people into this nor a Illuminati-type cabal of scientists bent on global economic destruction, contrary to the head-in-the-sand crowd who seem to be getting their conspiracy plots from comic books. The global level of concern is unlike anything I've seen in the past 30 years. A thermometer has no political agenda.
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Searchbeam
June 5, 2007, 11:25 p.m.To understand global warming is to understand thermodynamics - at least the simple version of it.
Heat is energy. When our planet absorbs more heat because of larger percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, essentially it is absorbing more energy. Although the land mass absorbs this energy as well as the oceans, it is the oceans and large bodies of water that create the more dynamic effect because there is more water on our planet. When the oceans and large masses of water absorb this energy, their temperature rises and the air above these bodies of water absorbs this energy and moves it around.
More..
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Searchbeam
June 6, 2007, 12:02 a.m.While we are discussing these "conventional" methods of energy production, something else more interesting is happening on the consumption side of the equation!
A French company has perfected an "Air Car" over the past ten years, and has now started manufacturing it in Nice, France. Some major international industrial giants have licensed their technology and are working on fine-tuning technology and innovations to mass-produce this marvel of engineering at an affordable cost of around $12,000.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this car is its operating expense. It runs on compressed air and on one charge of about $1.90, it can give you a range of around 260 kilometers - around 190 miles! If you calculate, it comes to about a penny a mile!
There is NO pollution, and the compressed air during its use creates free air-conditioning- as a by-product!
We are really living in an era of untold possibilities!
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hoppy
June 6, 2007, 12:59 a.m.Reduce carbon emitions? Solution; Kill every able bodied man,womam and child on planet earth.
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RickyDawkins
June 6, 2007, 1:10 a.m.Great Eye. You look way to young to be reading AARP!
Now if you guys would just give up on "intelligent design" maybe America's future will be bright!
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MyCampingMall
June 6, 2007, 8:01 a.m.My Camping Mall here. Good story. I do not understand how some people attempt to refute the scientific evidence. Is it that some still have the "world is flat" syndrome?
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Charlson
June 6, 2007, 8:41 a.m."When he lectures about global warming these days, Schneider often asks listeners about a more familiar risk. "How many of you have had a serious fire in your home?" he begins. In a crowd of 300 or so, usually three or four hands rise.
His next question: "How many of you buy fire insurance?"
Hundreds of hands go up."
A very good argument for hedging your bets. Now where do I go for global warming insurance?
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FordTruck5Speed
June 6, 2007, 9:51 a.m.Allow me to preface this by saying what I've said here before...I get it. Pollution=bad, clean=good. Now...
Global warming has become almost a religion, to the point where debating the causes of it or whether or not it will reverse naturally is blasphemy. I have a problem with focusing our attention onto a very small part of the game here. The oscillation of climate cycles involves many different players on the field. Human activity is only ONE of those players, and as has been posted here hundreds of times and addressed by many meteorologists, may not be all that big a player to begin with. In other words, if the Sun was the quarterback, humans may only be the back-up place kicker.
I don't like when people say that any scientific "theory" is a done deal when there are too many questions left unanswered. We are assuming that global climate is in our hands, and I, among many others, am not convinced of that. It may be, but I need more than 30 years of data to prove it.
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FordTruck5Speed
June 6, 2007, 10:03 a.m.In addition, as I've said before, the guidance offered by NASA/NOAA is in part based on a faulty computer model. The US-based GFS model (and it's buddy, the CFS) have been shown time and time again to be in error when it comes to dealing with heat. Take last year's el Nino. Accuweather forecasted a weak to moderate el Nino from months out, and pointed out the reality of the el Nino a month before NOAA did. The GFS model, even as the el Nino was leveling off and even weakening somewhat, was forecasting it to deepen to a strong el Nino (pacific waters 2 deg or more above normal). I can't exactly trust this model to figure out what will happen over the course of a century.
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crespi
June 6, 2007, 11:10 a.m.They just built 100,000 new homes in my town in the very sunny state of Colorado, and not ONE SINGLE solar panel! But most of them have "switch-on" fireplaces with permanent very hot pilot flames, so hot I couldn't put my hand one foot above it in the chimney. There were like a thousand homes in a row pouring this unnecessary heat out into 102 degree summer weather.
Not installing solar under those conditions is short-sighted and ecologically criminal...
*Good News*
The global deniers are losing it since Exxon officially cut off ALL it's massive funding for the crackpots (that fuel even our own Netscape global warming deniers.)
Solar might not yet run an entire city, but it can sure heat your water.
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jordan11
June 6, 2007, 11:11 a.m.http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/17726/
Sea Sponges act like Solar Cells. Science takes cue from them to build better Solar energy. Plankton are like little solar cells as well.
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cretaceous-cat
June 6, 2007, 11:11 a.m.Are any of you out there commenting on this degreed scientists and actually working in the field of your degree. The earth and its' cycles are too complex for the average individual to understand. Can someone explain to me how much sea level will rise if the arctic ice melts.
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joeblowe
June 6, 2007, 11:40 a.m.OK, here's the deal: 1) ALL energy is SOLAR energy at some level. Oil and coal are hydrocarbon molecules that were biofixed by either DIRECTLY converting sunlight to hydrocarbons (plants), or indirectly as a result of animals EATING the biofixed hydrocarbons (plants). Even NUCLEAR energy is, at a very far remove, SOLAR energy. The heavy elements needed to maintain a nuclear reactor were created in a sun, or a protosun, a very long time ago. 2) Even if we were to all AGREE that humans are TOTALLY responsible for global warming (very doubtful) what exactly would we do about it? NEXT TO NOTHING! We don't control India or China. We are NOT going to give up electric lights or air conditioning or motor vehicles or any of the other thousands of things that define our civilization. We just aren't. Could we make SOME changes that MIGHT make SOME differences? Perhaps, but the smart money says to bet on adapting to the changes, not changing human behavior.
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FordTruck5Speed
June 6, 2007, 11:46 a.m.Well, if the arctic ice melts, the sea levels won't rise an inch because it's all floating ice. Now, Antarctic Ice may be a different story since that's all sitting on land. Of course, the temperature down there would have to rise about 60 degrees to melt it all.
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cretaceous-cat
June 6, 2007, 12:49 p.m.can anyone tel me how much sea level will rise if the arctic ice melts completely?
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FordTruck5Speed
June 6, 2007, 1:37 p.m.I understand physics. Melt all the floating ice you want. Water levels won't rise. fill a glass with ice cubes then fill the rest with water. Wait for it to melt . Did it overflow? Of course it didn't .
Now, YOU tell ME how we're going to get enough heat to raise the ANTarctic temperatures high enough to melt ALL THE ICE ON ANTARCTICA. Catastrophic meteor strike, maybe.
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Countryhick
June 6, 2007, 1:45 p.m.Who said this was a Great Debate ? Should be labeled "Great! another Climate Debate" , in the context of , will this junk science and the morons ever stop .
I see EE is at it again , here we go with a month of Gullible Warning and Climate stories non-stop .
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