Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on June 3, 2011 at 7:30pm

Personally I've found the climate change 'movement' has become like a religion.  Failure to commiserate on the subject gets people all up in arms calling you a 'denier' and proselytizing worse than Christians about why you 'need to believe' - as though belief offers absolution.  Those who are trying to undermine the scientific findings on the subject with pseudo-science are equivalent to creationists in my mind, but I remain irreligious on the subject of climate change.

Permalink Reply by Clarence Dember on June 3, 2011 at 8:27pm

Climate change is cyclical and ultimately on the
geological, solar and galactic time scale. We
certainly can find better ways to manage energy
with technology and rational self interest. On this point we agree.

Permalink Reply by Tony Lester on June 3, 2011 at 9:22pm

If you believe climate change is happening, buy a bigger AC and move inland to higher ground because nothing we can do will alter it. Let me explain, it is a matter of scale. Whether discussing time, weight, thermodynamics, there is small scale, large scale, geological scale and galactic scale. 

An ice cube left outside will melt rather quickly, a iceberg will take several years, a planet several hundred years, and the space between the stars may be never. Even if our recent technology was causing the globe to heat-up it would take centuries before you could see the difference. OH green house gases like CO2 which we exhale and many others. 

 

Well the 20 or so, erupting volcanoes generate more gases by far than we do

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcanoes/faq/how_many_volcanoes.html

http://www.volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?faq=03

So tell how we are generating so many gases that it alters climate.  

 

So just wait a few hundred thousand and the weather will be totally different..

 

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on June 3, 2011 at 11:16pm

{Not answering as moderator, just as a member}

The weather is already different. By burning fossil fuel we've raised the temperature of the planet nearly a degree Celsius. "... every degree Celsius brings about 6 percent more lightening, according to the climate scientist Amanda Staudt." [eaarth:making a life on a tough new planet by Bill McKibben, p3] Presumably lightening counts as weather, and 6% more per year is something you'd count.

In case you haven't noticed (the insurance industry has) damage and death from flooding, wildfires, drought, storms like tornadoes, and excess heat are rising. That is what the climate models predicted.

While individuals may feel as if nothing they can do will alter the climate catastrophe slowly unfolding, collectively we are the direct cause of the problem. We are not helpless as a species, only too slow to recognize a danger our ancestors never faced.

We used to feel free to dump our wastes into the air because, as you say, "It is a matter of scale." The planet seemed so large compared to human beings. When CO2 rose, people said, "It'll go into the ocean sink, the ocean is so large." pH changes from that absorbed CO2 are now impacting the oyster industry, jellyfish have begun to replace fish in spots around the globe, and corals are dying.

The thing is, Tony Lester, we humans are so powerful we've crossed a scale threshold. We're changing the chemistry of our entire planet, not in geologic time but now.

End of rant. As you can tell, this is something I feel very strongly about.

Permalink Reply by Chris Breman on June 4, 2011 at 12:20am

I don´t like to become involved in a discussion in which people throw arguments nobody can prove instantly. But I´ve managed to keep my ecological footprint as large as it should be, not larger. How big is yours?

http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on June 5, 2011 at 11:55am

This World Wildlife calculator says my carbon footprint is 8.18 tonnes per year,if I did it right. It asked about buying cellphones, but not computers. It didn't ask if your electricity was green. Because it was aimed at Europe, I had trouble with the currency.

Thanks for the link, Chris!

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on June 10, 2011 at 11:27am

A "ha ha only serious" way to look at things:

 

"Save the earth -- it's our only source of chocolate."

 

(Calligraphic button by Nancy Lebovitz, www.nancybuttons.com. I've posted more samples in "What's Up?")

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on June 23, 2011 at 12:37pm

A photo by David Goldman at USA Today, captures my feelings about the ways Summer is changing in the US.

Reading about current floods and Arizona wildfires has me a bit on edge. What does happen when nuclear missile silos flood?

The site of the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant has two feet of water in places and the Cooper Nuclear station has begun shut down. *sigh* Will we see radiation in the Missouri River this Summer? Stay tuned as Summer unfolds. Although global temperature increases are gradual, the world is complex, not linear. Abrupt complications grab our attention much better than incremental change.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on July 11, 2011 at 12:49pm

Jared Diamond says he's optimistic about our ability to cope with climate change, because today we have the ability to learn from societies remote in time and distance. *sigh* Personally, I don't see that happening. I think we're making the same mistake the Maya did, because the elites feel insulated by their wealth and power.

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on July 17, 2011 at 1:16am

I think you are right.  I do not beleive that people have the will to change direction in a big way.  That will is needed not only in the US but in fast growing developing countries.  We appear to be in an age of massive extinctions, probably the first such that was not brought on by asteroids or huge volcanoes.  I feel as strongly as you do about it.  I think we owe future generations the self discipline to make their world as good as we can.  I think they will have a more dangerous, more unpleasant, impoverished ecology that is our fault.  There will also be more wars and more starvation, and more deaths in massive disasters as borderline climates become desert, and shorelines become under water or are hit with the occasional tsunami. 

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on October 5, 2011 at 9:57pm

Thanks for the video Ruth!

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on October 5, 2011 at 9:53pm

Another fire has erupted in Bastrop County!

"Wildfire frequency and danger are closely tied to weather. Although one might
assume that the greatest wildfire danger is associated with the most severe droughts,
wildfires are most dangerous when a few months of very wet weather produce heavy
vegetation growth and are followed by a few months of very dry weather that cause the fuel to dry out. When the fuel is in place, dangerous wildfires are most likely to occur on days with very strong wind and low humidity. Dust storms are favored under similar weather conditions but with longer-term dryness."

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