Weather Great Climate Changer

[Calliope]

Part of me can appreciate Mr Burns and Agentum's sentiments. Stuff it we would all like to be carefree like the good old days.

Perhaps continuing the same theme we could enjoy our Camels to our lungs content, we could have those great piss ups in the pub on Saturday night, bash a couple of poofs on way out to car and than have drunken drags down St Kilda rd (without those bloody wussy seat belts !!) and show everyone whose boss. And then on Sunday we could knock up some groovy little extension with the ever practical cement sheet. Ah the good old days...

Your sarcasm and proselytising are becoming boring. If we want to be brainwashed we can read The Age and The Guardian for ourselves.

 

[Agentm]

Water is a classic example of using the climate change issue to pursue other agendas. Watering the garden isn't adding much CO2 at all, it's just that in some regions there isn't much water available hence it's a problem. But there's no reason not to have a well watered lawn if you live somewhere that has plenty of water - you're not adding significantly to CO2 emissions by doing so.

Sadly, there seem to be some in the general community that see dead gardens as something we need to accept in order to fight climate change. That's outright nonsense even if we take the CO2 induced warming argument to be totally correct.

if you accept the carbon argument, then watering is exactly what is needed

CO ² consuming biomass

Source: Tonnes of green matter per year per hectare

Well-watered lawn 70 tonnes (7kg per m ²)
Temperate rainforest 50 tonnes
Tropical rain forest 90 tonnes
Desert 3 tonnes
Paving / bitumen nil

if a lawn can consume way more than what a temperate rainforest can, then i am all for it.. we are starving ourselves of oxygen by turning off the taps..

i will gladly go back to the days of summer with the sprinkler on all day.. that in turn will reduce the co2, reduce global warming and if you follow the illogical global warming debate,, bring the rains back!!

so water it ever day, mow it frquently and save the planet by watering big time i say..

or maybe the rains are caused by something else..

anyone ever studied the great southern ocean?

 

[prawn_86]

Just on AgentM's point,

New (young) shoots growth from trees also absorbs more co2, than old established branches etc, hence there is a good arguement for sustainable logging/cutting of trees as opposed to letting them grow.

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Just on AgentM's point,

New (young) shoots growth from trees also absorbs more co2, than old established branches etc, hence there is a good arguement for sustainable logging/cutting of trees as opposed to letting them grow.

Good point there Prawn. It has been known for years that sustainable logging is healthy and beneficial. Younger healthy trees produce oxygen.

 

[Chris45]

It won't be long before 240V dimmable LED bulbs are readily available. Consumption only 3-5W, last 20yrs, pay for themselves in 3yrs.

http://www.ledshoponline.com/led_E27.htm
http://www.diytrade.com/china/4/pro...LED_Bulb_Lamp_AC100-240V_5W_GU10_E27_E14.html

I bought a small Cree LED torch recently. Incredibly bright and lights up the whole backyard - makes those 6V Eveready Dolphins look like candles.

 

[basilio]

Quote:
Originally Posted by basilio View Post
Part of me can appreciate Mr Burns and Agentum's sentiments. Stuff it we would all like to be carefree like the good old days.

Perhaps continuing the same theme we could enjoy our Camels to our lungs content, we could have those great piss ups in the pub on Saturday night, bash a couple of poofs on way out to car and than have drunken drags down St Kilda rd (without those bloody wussy seat belts !!) and show everyone whose boss. And then on Sunday we could knock up some groovy little extension with the ever practical cement sheet. Ah the good old days...


Your sarcasm and proselytising are becoming boring. If we want to be brainwashed we can read The Age and The Guardian for ourselves.
__________________

The good old days activities I referred to were common practice in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Doctors advertised Camel cigarettes.

My point was that there were many things we did and accepted then that in hindsight (and probably at the time) were stupid and lethal. But that didn't stop the people who profited from the promotion keeping up the supply and doing everything in their power to prevent any laws that might curtail their activities. And that is on the public record.

And that of course was my comparision to the current situation regarding the continual use of fossil fuels.

As far as brainwashing ? The information from The Age/Guardian comes from a variety of sources. The fact is that in the area of climate change most of the information comes from scientific bodies which almost universally share the same deeply disturbed views on what is happening and where we are going. It is this near universal consensus you are disagreeing with not the newspapers. The papers are just the messengers.

Finally Calliope, I don't appreciate your nastiness. Let's keep this civil.

 

[Smurf1976]

Just on AgentM's point,

New (young) shoots growth from trees also absorbs more co2, than old established branches etc, hence there is a good arguement for sustainable logging/cutting of trees as opposed to letting them grow.

We're always going to need building materials and some form of fuel. Sensibly harvesting trees and using them instead of steel / concrete for building and instead of coal for fuel makes a lot of sense in terms of sustainability.

I can certainly see the argument that not all areas should be logged and I agree with that view. But there are a lot of practical benefits in having a timber industry - if we leave every tree standing then we're set to ramp up CO2 emissions as a consequence which doesn't make a lot of sense.

The same arguments apply to wind farms, hydro schemes etc. Yes they will impact the landscape BUT in doing so they reduce CO2 emissions as long as they're sensibly built. It's a point I've often made - conservation in the traditional "tree hugger" sense is at odds with any objective to reduce CO2 emissions, something that most seem unwilling to acknoledge (though the Greens have cautiously made a few policy references to it in recent years, ironically relating mostly to hydro power).

Dam and log the lot? NO! But there's no reason why we shouldn't use wood, wind and hydro in a lot of the situations where it's available - not every square metre of land is of high conservation value worthy of World Herritage listing.

Best advice I can give to anyone wanting to understand this is to see for yourself. See a logging coupe - yes it's an ugly mess. Now take a look at one that was logged 10 years ago and you'll see that trees do grow back.

 

[wayneL]

T
As far as brainwashing ? The information from The Age/Guardian comes from a variety of sources. The fact is that in the area of climate change most of the information comes from political bodies which almost universally share the same deeply disturbed views on what is happening and where we are going. It is this near universal political consensus you are disagreeing with not the newspapers. The papers are just the propagandists.(

Corrected for accuracy.

The science, being in hypothesis stage, is being strongly argued. You just have to get outside of confirmation bias and see past the ulterior agenda.

 

[Vizion]

Some figures for you.

If you use a temperate grass lawn as a baseline for CO2 absorption, the area of lawn required to absorb the CO2 of one person and one car is actually close to 1.5 acres.

A car and driver produce about 5.5 tons of CO2 per year. When all fossil fuel is considered, every man, woman, and child can be said to be responsible for (approx) 18 tons of CO2 emissions per year in this country.
The estimate of the average absorption of a temperate commercial forest is (approx) 0.8 tons of carbon/hectare/year. That equals 2.9 ish tons of CO2 /hectare/year, or 1.20 tons of CO2/acre/year.

Soooo to absorb the CO2 produced by a car and driver, a forest of about 4.6 acres is required.
What's that you say? That's allot more than an acre and a half or nice green grass!
True, but it's allot easier & more cost effective to plant & maintain 5 odd acres of fast growing pines, than 1.5 acres of watered lawn don't you think?

Have you thought about what kind of water supply you would need to actually water 1.5 acres of lawn? (times) each of the 13.5 million cars on our roads? We are not exactly water rich here... I would gently point your attention to the Murray Darling problem and the the current levels of water restrictions we enjoy.
Growing these sizes of areas, of either grass (yeah right) or even trees to nullify our current levels or CO2 output is not exactly feasible is it.

Someone mentioned burn off events, a whole other and very interesting topic in itself. The science of that could easily be a whole thread by itself.

You might bear in mind though, that while those events have gone on for thousands of years, our burning of massive quantities of fossil fuels, via 13.5 million & rising cars, AC units, Coal Mines, Aluminium smelting plants (burning brown coal) etc, has not. Its about cumulative effects, NOT one or two or three things taken in isolation.

We have already, measurably altered weather patterns above our major cities. The bigger ones act as massive heat sinks, one of the effects of these heat sinks is more violent electrical storms. Ringing any bells here?
Had a few rather large storm events in the last few years have we maybe?
This is well documented fact by organisations like NASA & our own CSIRO.

So regardless of what anyone here might think, unless you are in their league, when it comes to being able to devise, and interpret complex models and data sets. After spending 30 years of your life dedicated to it... do please pardon me if I don't listen to your "opinion" that global warming "might" not be happening. Hey if anyone here has the scientific credentials to back up their arguments, not some page from Google, please trot them out so we can all actually trust you know what you are talking about. Robots does not count, we all know he is a genius

I personally though, would rather we attempted to do something about it. Not be look back in 20 or 30 years when some of you are dead & gone, & have to be saying to my (currently 2 day old daughter) "Sorry sweet pea, we should have listened, but there was this bunch of semi informed people who did not believe it was really happening. They thought they knew more than the people who actually studied it" "shrug"

The world is full of people you can say "I told you so" "ner ner... see it was all a crock" after an event has passed, this one though? Just might be a bit too important to take that risk with perhaps?

 

[Smurf1976]

We have already, measurably altered weather patterns above our major cities. The bigger ones act as massive heat sinks, one of the effects of these heat sinks is more violent electrical storms. Ringing any bells here?
Had a few rather large storm events in the last few years have we maybe?
This is well documented fact by organisations like NASA & our own CSIRO.

The "heat island" effect of cities is well documented in Australia and overseas.

And that is precisely why temperature measurements near cities, power stations, smelters, airports or any other major source of heat are completely meaningless in terms of measuring global temperature changes.

So forget Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and even Hobart as a useful place to measure temperatures as far as climate change is concerned. Try somewhere in the outback of mainland Australia or in the central highlands of Tas if you want a more accurate representation. Or measure via satellites instead - just don't measure near major heat sources on the ground.

As for watering lawns, I'm certainly not saying that's a viable means of soaking up CO2. But if you've got plenty of water then there's nothing "wrong" with putting some on the garden if you want to despite the apparent agendas of some in this regard.

 

[basilio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by basilio View Post
T
As far as brainwashing ? The information from The Age/Guardian comes from a variety of sources. The fact is that in the area of climate change most of the information comes from political bodies ? which almost universally share the same deeply disturbed views on what is happening and where we are going. It is this near universal political consensus ?you are disagreeing with not the newspapers. The papers are just the propagandists.
Corrected for accuracy.

The science, being in hypothesis stage, is being strongly argued. You just have to get outside of confirmation bias and see past the ulterior agenda.

Just can't see or agree with your revision Wayne.

It seems as if your saying that when scientific organizations release their analysis on what is happening with regard to climate change they suddenly become just political animals! You seem to be saying that their research is just not credible anymore..

Is everything absolutely proven ? Almost certainly not. Is there a very high degree of confidence amongst climate scientists as to the cause and final effects of continued greenhouse gas emissions? Arguably yes.

How long do we wait for final proof ? If the consequences of the scientific consensus being correct is catastrophic can we wait for absolute certainty before beginning action?

-------------------------------

I also think it is worth repeating the observations I made earlier about the determination of current interest groups to protect their investments regardless of consequences. I picked out the tobacco industry as one that denied the reality of tobacco caused deaths for 50 years.

It is a fact that the most argumentative group questioning the science behind anthropogenic global warming and then the need for action is the fossil fuel industry. How much credibility can the coal and oil industry have in this debate when they are effectively arguing to protect their patch ?

 

[bjbcats]

Reading this thread, there seems a quite a bit of scepticism on the anthropogenic warming hypothesis.

My take on this is: just over 200 hundred years ago, the First Fleet used the Tank Stream as their source of fresh water, but in very short order managed to pollute it so it was unusable (I believe the same thing happened when English and Dutch settled Long Island). Up until the mid 1970's, industry routinely dumped their waste in the local river or lake, which wasn't too good for the fish. It wasn't until people started to get effected by this pollution that we decided this wasn't a good idea.

Now, over a period of maybe 250 years, we are liberating all the carbon trapped from 100's of million years of plant growth back into the atmosphere. If the past experience with our waterways is any guide, pumping this volume of stuff into the atmosphere in such a short time period is unlikely to lead to a good outcome.

 

[wayneL]

Quote:


Just can't see or agree with your revision Wayne.

I didn't expect you to.

It is nevertheless, demonstrably true.

 

[Smurf1976]

Up until the mid 1970's, industry routinely dumped their waste in the local river or lake, which wasn't too good for the fish. It wasn't until people started to get effected by this pollution that we decided this wasn't a good idea.

Or in one case where all the pollution built up under the bridge to the point of effectively damming the creek and threatening to flood the two offending industries with their own pollution.

I wasn't around to see that but I'm told the solution they came up with (rather quickly) was simply to bring in an excavator to dig a channel and get all the muck flowing again... straight onto the beach (literally).

A few decades later and neither industry is in existance in that form today, one having been long since demolished and the other radically changed in operation.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

From The Times, a publication not given to inaccuracy or hyperbole.

This warmener wants us all to go vegetarian to stop cattle from farting. Perhaps giving him a job lighting matches at the **** end of a cow might solve the "problem" as well.

How low can these unscientific people stoop.

Its been raining here tonight, in Townsville, nice gentle rain. So welcome.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6891362.ece

People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

gg

 

[Wysiwyg]

Now, over a period of maybe 250 years, we are liberating all the carbon trapped from 100's of million years of plant growth back into the atmosphere.

Surely a new discovery and invention will emerge to replace the burning of fossil fuels that create electricity. The collective mind is constantly evolving into a more intelligent organism so surely a solution will be discovered.

 

[Calliope]

Finally Calliope, I don't appreciate your nastiness. Let's keep this civil.

What nastiness did you infer from my post? Certainly none was intended. I have no objections to you preaching the climate change gospel according to the bias of The Age and The Guardian. But I doubt you are getting many converts on these pages.

 

[wayneL]

We have already, measurably altered weather patterns above our major cities. The bigger ones act as massive heat sinks, one of the effects of these heat sinks is more violent electrical storms. Ringing any bells here?
Had a few rather large storm events in the last few years have we maybe?
This is well documented fact by organisations like NASA & our own CSIRO.

You accidently stumbled on the major source of climate change. It's not CO2, it's LAND USE.

So regardless of what anyone here might think, unless you are in their league, when it comes to being able to devise, and interpret complex models and data sets. After spending 30 years of your life dedicated to it... do please pardon me if I don't listen to your "opinion" that global warming "might" not be happening. Hey if anyone here has the scientific credentials to back up their arguments, not some page from Google, please trot them out so we can all actually trust you know what you are talking about.

Hoist by your own petard there. Why should we listen to you opinion then?

While the scientists debate, the propagandists give only one side of the story. There are similarly qualified folk who argue either against, or for an extremely different picture of AGW.

One of the few balanced CC protagonists torpedos massive holes in the IPCC model and political position. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/

 

[basilio]

Rep. Perriello: Coal Fraudster Impersonated Women’s And Seniors’ Groups As Well

The stack of forged letters opposing clean energy reform on behalf of the coal industry is growing. Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) has revealed that he not only received forgeries purporting to come from black and hispanic groups, but also senior citizen and women’s advocacy organizations as well. Yesterday, Perriello’s office told reporters that in addition to the five NAACP letters and one Creciendo Juntos letter forged on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), “two other letters were forged to appear as if they had been sent by the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, a Charlottesville agency, and the American Association of University Women.” Perriello, who cast his vote in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act despite this fraud, discussed the scandal on Rachel Maddow:

Obviously, anything like this, where someone is claiming your letterhead and then claiming your position is just outrageous. They also did JABA, the Jefferson Area Board for the Aging, which is one of these great service organizations in our community that helps our seniors. And for them to get dragged into something like this really is, I think, a blow to folks in the area. But it’s also just a turn-off again to these sorts of corporate-lobbying tactics.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/05/further-coal-fraud/

I've made a few references in recent comments to the role of the fossil fuel industry, in particular coal in attacking any attempts to curtail coal production.

It's interesting to see just how far they will go in their efforts to deceive us.

 

[Smurf1976]

Surely a new discovery and invention will emerge to replace the burning of fossil fuels that create electricity. The collective mind is constantly evolving into a more intelligent organism so surely a solution will be discovered.

Technically it's possible now, financial cost is the problem. Coal at $40 per MWh (operating cost less than half of that for existing plants) is cheaper than alternatives that start around $70 per MWh and go over $100 per MWh when scaled up.

If Australian industry operated in isolation then we could possibly afford $100 per MWh. But not when we've got to compete with others who will keep using cheap coal. Globalisation and "free" trade are the problem there - our energy intensive industries are price takers on the international scene and simply can't increase selling prices if input energy costs go up. THAT is the problem.