Friday
Sep052008
Don't worry about global warming
Friday, September 5, 2008 at 9:51AM
There is no point, there is nothing that can be done about it. This doesn't mean that electric cars, conservation, recycling, and environmentalism in general are not good ideas for other reasons. Energy independence and minimizing pollution are admirable and attainable goals in their own right. But claiming that we can reverse, or even stop the trend of global warming seems extremely naive.
by probek
Look at the evidence. We have managed to generate enough carbon dioxide over the last 100 years to actually cause the entire atmosphere and all the worlds oceans to rise in temperature significantly. It requires an enormous amount of energy to cause that change in temperature, and we haven't stopped adding energy to the system. In fact, the carbon dioxide that traps that energy is not only still being added to the system, but also being added at ever increasing rates.
by davidciani
Think of the world temperature like a parked dump truck, it has stayed stationary for a fairly long period of time because of how much energy is required to move it. (Ridiculous analogy, I know, but stay with me).
If you start getting more and more people to push on the truck, eventually it will start moving if there is enough force. But it's not like the force suddenly disappears as soon as the truck gets moving, those people are still pushing, still increasing it's speed. Not only that, but you are still adding more people, so it accelerates still more.
by justmakeit
In this analogy you cannot merely add fewer people and hope that the truck returns to it's original stationary state. The people are still pushing, the truck will keep moving. You have to not only stop adding people, but somehow get people to start pulling on the truck rather than pushing.
by kreg.steppe
Freezing CO2 emissions is not good enough, the CO2 we are emitting right now is already way more than enough to keep the temperatures rising for hundreds of years. Even reducing carbon emissions would not be enough, ever since the industrial revolution we've been making more CO2 than the planet can handle. Carbon neutral solutions won't work, we need massively carbon negative solutions.
There are carbon negative projects. There is a new form of concrete that actively sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere, and a method of generating power using algae that is not only financially feasible but also is hugely carbon negative. (click the chart for a good article on the subject)
But those things will not have nearly a large enough effect. If we've managed to get the atmosphere dumptruck moving in such a short time, no one is going to agree to make the shorts of sacrifices necessary to slow it down, let alone stop it again. We can't even get countries to agree to a carbon freeze, let alone reducing carbon to the pre-industrial levels necessary to stop warming.
by OntCopper
There is no way that global warming is going to be stopped. It's going to continue, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. The best thing we can do is try to minimize the damage.
by striatic
by probek
Look at the evidence. We have managed to generate enough carbon dioxide over the last 100 years to actually cause the entire atmosphere and all the worlds oceans to rise in temperature significantly. It requires an enormous amount of energy to cause that change in temperature, and we haven't stopped adding energy to the system. In fact, the carbon dioxide that traps that energy is not only still being added to the system, but also being added at ever increasing rates.
by davidciani
Think of the world temperature like a parked dump truck, it has stayed stationary for a fairly long period of time because of how much energy is required to move it. (Ridiculous analogy, I know, but stay with me).
If you start getting more and more people to push on the truck, eventually it will start moving if there is enough force. But it's not like the force suddenly disappears as soon as the truck gets moving, those people are still pushing, still increasing it's speed. Not only that, but you are still adding more people, so it accelerates still more.
by justmakeit
In this analogy you cannot merely add fewer people and hope that the truck returns to it's original stationary state. The people are still pushing, the truck will keep moving. You have to not only stop adding people, but somehow get people to start pulling on the truck rather than pushing.
by kreg.steppe
Freezing CO2 emissions is not good enough, the CO2 we are emitting right now is already way more than enough to keep the temperatures rising for hundreds of years. Even reducing carbon emissions would not be enough, ever since the industrial revolution we've been making more CO2 than the planet can handle. Carbon neutral solutions won't work, we need massively carbon negative solutions.
There are carbon negative projects. There is a new form of concrete that actively sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere, and a method of generating power using algae that is not only financially feasible but also is hugely carbon negative. (click the chart for a good article on the subject)
But those things will not have nearly a large enough effect. If we've managed to get the atmosphere dumptruck moving in such a short time, no one is going to agree to make the shorts of sacrifices necessary to slow it down, let alone stop it again. We can't even get countries to agree to a carbon freeze, let alone reducing carbon to the pre-industrial levels necessary to stop warming.
by OntCopper
There is no way that global warming is going to be stopped. It's going to continue, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. The best thing we can do is try to minimize the damage.
by striatic
tagged carbon, dioxide, emissions, environmentalism, global warming, warming in Rant
carbon, dioxide, emissions, environmentalism, global warming, warming in Rant 
Reader Comments (3)
Oh I love that last picture.
I know it's kind of dumb for me to say but I'm not really sure this whole "global warming" thing is really our fault. Our world has quite the history of ups and downs and I just think we're in an "up" stage. I'm sure we're maybe accelerating the swing of it, but I don't think we're the cause of it.
Just remember, back in the early 1400s, the earth was 1 degree warmer on average than it is now and it was a time a prosperity and abundance. So who is to say this is necessarily a bad thing?
I don't know, I defer to those with more knowledgeable than me on these subjects and the consensus is clearly that we are causing it.
That said, I think that it's a different debate about whether or not it's a bad thing, and whether or not we can accurately predict the effects.
There were periods in recent history where the planet warmed or cooled briefly, but those were isolated events. Not the result of sustained forces.
Also, it's worth noting that the planet has been dramatically warmer, and had a dramatically higher level of CO2 at various points in the prehistoric era. So the world isn't going to come to an end, it's just going to change dramatically.
I just think we're better off devoting our time and money to finding ways of dealing with the change, rather than trying to stop it.
Even if there are some problems with the CO2 theories it's still not a great idea to pump megtonnes of pollution into the air, into the rivers and seas, and over the land, and poison our own food chain. And we need to leave some sort of do-able legacy in our wake.