Global warming was already happening...?

The evidence shows that the increase in CO2 concentrations is a result of increased emissions from ourselves, there's no doubt about that in the scientific community. The debate is over the extent of warming expected from this increase (as well as CH4, which is a much more potent GHG than CO2), which is very hard to model as the climate and atmospheric systems are still not understood in enough detail to predict consistent figures. However, they all show there's likely to be an increase, and historical data shows that such a fast rise in GHG concentrations is unprecedented, although fast warming and cooling cycles have occurred in the distant past, the cause of these is mostly educated speculation.

The forcing of the climate system to contain more CO2 and CH4 than expected is therefore problematic, and the processes by which they are removed from the atmosphere are so much slower, the system cannot possibly keep up with the increased flux into it. Therefore we must reduce emissions, as it will only cause problems in my eyes, and even a small increase in global temperature can have far reaching issues.

Volcanic eruptions actually reduce global temperature btw, due to aerosols in the atmosphere.
 
alexhull24 said:
Therefore we must reduce emissions, as it will only cause problems in my eyes, and even a small increase in global temperature can have far reaching issues.

Volcanic eruptions actually reduce global temperature btw, due to aerosols in the atmosphere.
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The trouble is how? No one yet has come up with a viable solution. Hippies keep banging on about stuff, but none of what they suggest will work.

Volcanoes lower the temperature due to the dust ejected into the outer atmosphere. these however eventually settle after several years. The co2 released is massive. Several years and even decades worth of human co2 emission.

Again you've missed the point of natural cycles. even if we cut human co2 to ZERO. Temperatures will rise and ice caps will melt. Then we WILL go back into another ice age. How do you plan to stop this?
 
AcidHell2 said:
Which just isn't possible. If you look at the IPCC own papers. IIRC needs a reduction of between 20-40% in the next 20 years to stay in a moderately dangerous PPM concentration. This is simply imposable to achieve. The actual figures and report containing them are buried in the SC thread somewhere.


What do we do when the planet naturally raises the temperature above two degrees? People seem to forget that these cycles happen naturally as well. They seem to think accelerating it into a shorter time period some how makes it 10million zillion times worse.

Lets stop making stupid policies, stupid taxes, wasting money on wind turbines and oither "renewable" sources that just wont and don't work.

lets start securing our own power, start using reliable and predictable renewable energy. Research geo-thermal, jet stream wind production and other such things that don't mess the national grid up.

Let's concentrate on all pollution, not just stupid co2.

Most people think I'm some sort of Jeremy clarkson wannabe and just won't to pollute for the sake of it. I'm not. I just don't wont to mess the country up using bad sudo-sceince and pure lies.
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It's certainly the case that developed countries will have to reduce their emissions by 80-90% to have any hope of meeting such a target, it's going to be very difficult to ensure that developing countries meet this also. Carbon sequestration will play a massive role particularly in cutting emissions from coal fired stations and would cut China's output significantly.

Atmospheric temperature is correlated with CO2 concentration, whatever its origin, whether it has been emitted by natural or unnatural means. There have been times when the Earth's temperature has risen 2 degrees C above average naturally, when CO2 concentration has risen towards 300 ppm (parts per million), a level we've already exceeded (http://homepages.ius.edu/kforinas/ClassRefs/GlobalWarming.html).

Perhaps we are already committed to a 2 degree rise, but we need to ensure that it doesn't get any worse! The IPCC have predicted rises of up to 6.4 degrees C, but many climate scientists have used models that show possible rises of anywhere up to 11.5 degrees C (Stainforth et al, 'Uncertainty in Predictions of the Climate Response to Rising Levels of Greenhouse Gases, Nature)

Wind energy is a fantastic energy source, particularly for the UK and will play a huge role in meeting our future energy requirements. We have the best off shore wind resource in Europe, it would be a shame not to take advantage. Commercial 6MW turbines are now available, it is predicted that 10MW machines are around 10 years away.
 
Fusion said:
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Wind energy is a fantastic energy source, particularly for the UK and will play a huge role in meeting our future energy requirements. We have the best off shore wind resource in Europe, it would be a shame not to take advantage. Commercial 6MW turbines are now available, it is predicted that 10MW machines are around 10 years away.
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It's not, it's unpredictable. Expensive, co2 intensive to set up and more importantly has to be backed up with many normal power stations. As the national grid simply can not cope with a large % of unpredictable power. It is not the awnser everyone thinks it is. If we could crack jetstream wind power. This however can work and work well due to it's constant nature.
 
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google George Carlin - The planet is fine, my favourite take on global warming, can't link directly though
 
Yep, the earth in its history has always gone in cycles of warming and cooling. There is nothing we could do that would prevent global warming. It was always going to happen. Likewise when it cools again afterwards.

We are not the cause of global warming. We may well be an accelerant of it, but we are not the cause of it.
 
AcidHell2 said:
The trouble is how? No one yet has come up with a viable solution. Hippies keep banging on about stuff, but none of what they suggest will work.

Volcanoes lower the temperature due to the dust ejected into the outer atmosphere. these however eventually settle after several years. The co2 released is massive. Several years and even decades worth of human co2 emission.

Again you've missed the point of natural cycles. even if we cut human co2 to ZERO. Temperatures will rise and ice caps will melt. Then we WILL go back into another ice age. How do you plan to stop this?
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We must cut the emissions to limit the damage, i'm well aware that the problem wont just disappear. Investment in alternative sources of energy would be the best way forward so we can eradicate fossil fuel burning for electricity. This takes time, but I think the world has the resources to make it happen, just the people in power don't realise the importance of this.

Hippies banging on about stuff this isn't, there are thousands of real scientists working on the problems presented to us as we speak, it's not the 60's any more. There are some promising but early ideas to do with carbon sequestration and alternative energy is already beginning to gather some more momentum.

I think you misinterpreted my point about natural cycles. This cycle we have sped up no doubt, we just need to limit the damage as much as possible by not feeding it further. Of course another heating up of the globe and subsequent ice age is inevitable, but it shouldn't be happening as fast as we predict it will. Species have survived them before, and we have the resourcefulness to survive again I'm sure.
 
Surely the reason scientists are really working on alternative energy sources is because the fossil fuel sources are finite, and running out, nothing to do with wanting to save the world.
 
but that's my point, we do not have any viable way of reducing the co2 emmisions at the present time. Yes people are working on it. But until we have breakthroughs we have nothing of substance.

the price of doing what you say in teh time scale would bankrupt every economy. Just look at china and coal power. They are building a fast need fleet of power stations and some want even be finished for another decade.

Speeding up the cycle ultimately does very little. we will still reach these temperatures and lose the ice caps, unless we go back into another ice age before that.

Abraham said:
Surely the reason scientists are really working on alternative energy sources is because the fossil fuel sources are finite, and running out, nothing to do with wanting to save the world.
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Except we still probably have hundreds of years left. people like to forget about emerging technologies hat can tap previusley un-economic sites, shale oil and oil out of rocks.
 
AcidHell2 said:
It's not, it's unpredictable. Expensive, co2 intensive to set up and more importantly has to be backed up with many normal power stations. As the national grid simply can not cope with a large % of unpredictable power. It is not the awnser everyone thinks it is. If we could crack jetstream wind power. This however can work and work well due to it's constant nature.
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Wind can be a dependable resource if sufficient large offshore arrays are built. The average wind speed at sea is higher. Load factors are taken into account (i.e. that turbines can't produce 100% of max power for 100% of the time), and farms are over specced with more turbines than is needed. They payback the energy used in their constructio in 3 to 5 months (http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/explained/wind/myths/page16060.html#d).

The technology of high capacity DC cables to connect the arrays is advancing all the time and allowing farms to be placed further offshore than ever. Mass implementation may need further grid reinforcement but this is all part of the investment strategy.

Wind will become a more viable option when cap-and-trade schemes inevitably come in, and energy from fossil fuel stations becomes more expensive due to paying for their emissions. Renewable energy is also supported by ROCs (Renewable obligation certificates), where money is made for every unit of electricity generated from renewable sources.
 
Fusion said:
Wind can be a dependable resource if sufficient large offshore arrays are built. The average wind speed at sea is higher. Load factors are taken into account (i.e. that turbines can't produce 100% of max power for 100% of the time), and farms are over specced with more turbines than is needed. They payback the energy used in their constructio in 3 to 5 months (http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/explained/wind/myths/page16060.html#d).
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Yes offshore is far more reliable and over specced. But it still does not give constant or predictable power which the national grid relies on. This is teh problem. even if you over spec that wind energy by 300% there will still be times that it dips below 100% and as such this has to be backed up with conventional power. To keep the grid stable.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Except we still probably have hundreds of years left. people like to forget about emerging technologies hat can tap previusley un-economic sites, shale oil and oil out of rocks.
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I wasn't arguing against you, I was saying that conversely to everyone saying, "it must be happening, scientists are putting lots of effort into new energy sources because the world is melting" it might actually be that they're putting effort in because they're after a more economical source before the price of fossil fuels goes too high as a result of more difficult extraction
 
Breakthroughs just don't happen by accident though, more investment is needed into research to find viable solutions quicker, I really doubt it would bankrupt the countries of the world. In an ideal world we'd have all this cash already if the USA stopped making war with everyone, but that's another thing entirely.
 
I agree that we can't power the country solely using Wind, that would be silly. There's no reason why it can't supply 30-40% though, with nuclear making a more meaty contribution, tidal barrages supplying some and carbon sequestration implemented on Coal, gas and oil stations.
 
alexhull24 said:
Breakthroughs just don't happen by accident though, more investment is needed into research to find viable solutions quicker, I really doubt it would bankrupt the countries of the world. In an ideal world we'd have all this cash already if the USA stopped making war with everyone, but that's another thing entirely.
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Totaly agree we need goverment funding/competions to get some real viable solutions that can be rolled out in a massive scale.

Using current tech and rolling it out to cut co2 emissions by 20%+ in just two decades. I would bet that would bankrupt the world although I have no figures to back it up. we use astronomical amounts of energy and changing the total energy system, infrastructure and anything else related would be a massive and never done before task.
 
Sure, calling it a 'big ask' would be an understatement, and I agree that these things take time, but my point is they needn't take so much. Perhaps it's a challenge that we should try and rise to, rather than arguing about.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Again you've missed the point of natural cycles. even if we cut human co2 to ZERO. Temperatures will rise and ice caps will melt. Then we WILL go back into another ice age. How do you plan to stop this?
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I am sure I read something or saw something on TV that indicated we should already be in another Ice Age. Why hasn't it happened already? When do the scientific community suggest it will start?

I have to be honest, I just can't see it. The World is getting hotter and hotter, where is the snow and ice and sudden drop in global temperatures going to come from?
 
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