Global Warming/Climate Change

[shifha]

"And lets not forget about the worlds largest carbon sinks: Trees. "
Actually, imho, the largest carbon sink in the world is, surprisingly, rock which has been recently weathered, exposing new surfaces.
Basically, people concentrate on climate change as the major problem. But over population and the results of polluting the oceans and atmosphere may be just as bad.

[Liam Naisson]

Rocks being the biggest carbon sinks? Thats a new one for me. Trees draw down the most carbon out of the air of all things on the planet so far, followed shortly by the ocean which does about a third. So i have a problem currently picturing that rocks do a lot of a difference currently. If you have a source, i would love to read about it though.

I also love the "it's a political thing" debate. It's not. It is a matter of survivial as a species. You think this is some kind of conspiracy that a huge amount of scientists cooked up, together with all the green parties of the world, to create a powerbase? Please, thats not even worth a siencefiction short story. Even if you would entertain that rather amusing thought, where is that powerbase now that the report is out? Oh yeah it doesnt exist, because that is all fantasy. Also the IPCC is not some club if idiots called together yesterday, they have been around for a while and looked that this for a very very long time before bringing out their report.

There is exactly one guy who does not want his name in it, his name is Christopher Landsea. He left saying that he viewed the process "as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound". But he also notes that the actual report "maintain[s] consistency with the actual balance of opinion(s) in the community of relevant experts."
So the usual politics drama on that guy, yet even thought he didn't like something, he still says the whole thing is balanced report about what the experts think. It is a rather silly argument that one guy leaving or not being happy with something that thousands worked on, makes the whole thing bogus.

I read up a little about the current perdictions again. A quarter of the human population and a third of our infrastructure (globally) would have to relocate or be destroyed, if the sealevel rises 2 meters. Currently the IPCC has a range of 0.9 - 1.4 meters sealevel rise projected till 2100. They corrected it half a meter UP, after 5 years more data. Rises in temeprature are a lot faster then they perdicted, most of the "bad values" are in the upper 90% of the ranges they perdicted and feed of each other to cause everything to spiral out even faster than they thought. The initial ssumptions were made on the premesis that many of those values might spike or go higher, but not that a great many of them all go into the top ranges in unison.

Over population is another factor in this gigantic equasion. This not only means families having 10 kids in China or India, it also means women being made criminals if they want to abort their child or being refused access to birth control. Please dont go down the abortion rights road here, this is only one of many little side tracks that all plays into the gigantic machine that drives global warming.

For my part, i only have CFL light bulbs, i even got the company that manages my appartement building to replace all the ones in the halls with CFLs. I bought a load of power bars and switch everything off completely that i am not using, with the exception of my alarm clock. There is a solarpanel on my balcony, supplying some extra power that i am not sucking form the grid, saving me money and the envoriment some extra carbon. I walk, bike or use the bus, dont even own a car. If i would buy one, it would be this one: http://theaircar.com/ which not only is nice to the environment, no, i also save a ton of gas, can refill it for free at pretty much all gas stations, can plug it into a socket if need be, or use a solarpanel to recharge it at home. It might not be a cool sportscar, but it will drive me around town and cost me less than any other car in buying and maintanance.

Don't go living in a cave. Just do the small changes that will in effect save you money. And btw also help the environment, but thats just a small added bonus.

[Ultraprene]

Well written essay. Let me answer one point. Rocks are a sink for CO2 in the sense that carbonate rocks hold a lot of the CO2 generated in the past. I don't believe they are "eating up" the stuff going into the atmosphere now. Some atmospheric CO2 does go into the ocean, but this lowers the pH of the water (Dissolved carbon dioxide is called carbonic acid.) It's a weak acid but still acid.

I admire your efforts to reduce your "carbon footprint." Keep up the good work.

[OttifantSir]

But he also notes that the actual report "maintain[s] consistency with the actual balance of opinion(s) in the community of relevant experts."

I have not yet visited your links, but I would like to know if this scientist has qualified his statement, or if you know where to find the original statement/interview.
Because this statement only says in polite terms, (coupled with the reason why he wants to leave, and the fact that he never was asked to be a part of the research, they just pasted his name in there,) that nothing was accomplished. Said ruder, more directly: They have wasted a whole lot of money to prove that we don't know anything.

I am not someone dumping litter and toxic materials everywhere. I sort the trash, I use energy efficient light bulbs, I lower my inside temperature.

But, I think the "Global Warming/Climate Change"-hysteria is just that; Hysteria. It won't hurt us to think of other ways to get power than by burning fossile fuels, but I don't think we can affect the climate all that much.

I also seem to remember that making solar panels for homes, produces CO2 equivalent of burning off a lot of coal. Environmentally-kind ways to produce power is waterfalls and (yes, for the environment) nuclear plants. These release CO2 too, but that's less than any other energy source. But they have other problems, I know.

[shifha]

Here is a source for the rock sink hypothesis, Liam. http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/karst/kig2002/cg_karst.html

[shifha]

And this is a better one. http://www.iemss.org/iemss2002/proce...416_egorov.pdf