I found this video interesting. Maybe you will too, if not I hope you accidentally fall into an industrial wood chipper.
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Friday, October 8, 2010
Global warming lecture
I found a great lecture on global warming by James Hansen.
http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2010/professor_james_hansen.shtml
And I found a cool website that shows the amount of CO2 in parts per million in the atmosphere.
http://co2now.org/
This was the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere last month:
386.80 ppm
Anything over 350 ppm is considered dangerous. Clearly, we're emitting too much.
From the website:
And to the AGW deniers, if you're going to deny it, fine, just do some research first. Don't deny it because "hurr durr global warming ain't real cuz it's cold outside!"
I'll leave you with this figure:
Yes, I realize this is a massive appeal to authority, but let's be honest, who's more trustworthy: the average citizen or a scientist? I think we all know the answer to that.
http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2010/professor_james_hansen.shtml
And I found a cool website that shows the amount of CO2 in parts per million in the atmosphere.
http://co2now.org/
This was the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere last month:
386.80 ppm
Anything over 350 ppm is considered dangerous. Clearly, we're emitting too much.
From the website:
Global warming is mainly the result of CO2 levels rising in the Earth’s atmosphere. Both atmospheric CO2 and climate change are accelerating. Climate scientists say we have years, not decades, to stabilize CO2 and other greenhouse gases.We need to do something fast or we'll either kill ourselves or our progeny. And YOUR apathy isn't helping.
And to the AGW deniers, if you're going to deny it, fine, just do some research first. Don't deny it because "hurr durr global warming ain't real cuz it's cold outside!"
I'll leave you with this figure:
Yes, I realize this is a massive appeal to authority, but let's be honest, who's more trustworthy: the average citizen or a scientist? I think we all know the answer to that.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Winter and global warming
I opened my front door and walked outside sometime late last night. What a great feeling. The obsidian sky and the cold autumn air. It instantly made me happy to know that winter (my favorite season) would be arriving soon. I like cold weather and darkness.
With that relatively pointless intro being said, I recently read an article about 6 good things that would supposedly happen as a result of global warming.
6. It could delay a far worse Ice Age
In general, humans do better in extreme heat than extreme cold--a lot more of us live around the warm equator than the frigid poles. So it makes sense that global warming wouldn't be nearly the disaster that, say, a new Ice Age would be. Especially when you take into account the fact that we've yet to find crops that like to grow under three feet of ice.
Well we haven't found crops that like to grow in temperatures above 140 degrees either.
A new Ice Age isn't the stuff of science fiction, either. These cooling periods have happened at least four times that we know about, caused by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun that happen from time to time. It's a regular cycle. Our current warming is not, however, part of that cycle. Right now we should be cooling down, but thanks to those brave souls who refuse to give up Hummers, make margaritas with diesel-powered blenders and drive their hovercrafts to get the daily mail, we're not. This may not be all bad news, if the warming will wind up delaying or blunting the effects of the next Ice Age, as some experts think it will.
I guess that's good for now, but what about when this cooling period ends and we enter a warming period? Luckily we'll all be dead before that happens.
5. Warmer winters mean fewer deaths
We try to keep things light-hearted here, so let's put it this way: Every winter someone, or 10,000 someones, forgets to turn up grandma's thermostat and by the time Christmas rolls around the family gathers to discover a Grandma-cicle under the Christmas tree.OK, that was actually much more disturbing than if we had just said it outright: Winter kills people. Not just from freezing to death, either; warmer winters will save people from dying of pretty much EVERYTHING. Studies have shown that cold causes more of almost every kind of death, from heart attacks to digestive system disorders to infectious diseases, all of which jump in cold winter temperatures.
I already addressed this in an earlier post of mine, found here:
http://pigdisgusting.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-much-is-left-long-post-is-long.html
Crop yield will rise in some places and decrease in others, but overall it will be a decrease.
Also, remember that plants eat CO2. The additional CO2 global warming brings will increase photosynthesis in plants, making the process more efficient, requiring less water. With new, water-sipping plants, not only can we expect more food, trees and agriculture with fewer resources, but a cheaper, easier way to create biofuels, which up to this point have created more ecological damage than good.
There will be more CO2, yes, but all of the other things that will happen as a result of global warming will be bad for plant growth, such as increased acidic rain which will wash topsoil and cause other problems.
3. Cheaper imported goods
Ever since man realized that there was money to be made by piling valuable things on a boat and selling them to faraway lands where they're even more valuable, we've had one huge problem: To get back and forth between two of the biggest markets--Asia and Europe--your boats have to sail this massive pain-in-the-ass route...
We literally spent centuries trying to sail through the frozen Northwest Passage over Canada, even though expedition after expedition found themselves wedged in 20 feet of ice every time. Even after we built the Panama and Suez canals to make it less of a pain in the ass to get from one ocean to the other, it would still be hugely beneficial to have the Northwest Passage opened up.
Global warming is about to give it to us, because all of that ice is finally melting up there (for part of the year, anyway). If so, it'll shorten some shipping Europe-to-Asia shipping routes by half. Goods will get there faster, and cheaper.
I can't think of anything wrong with this one.
2. It might actually decrease hurricane
Right around Hurricane Katrina was when everybody started talking about how global warming would give us more hurricanes. The idea is that hurricanes are the result of heat energy getting released from the ocean, so warmer oceans means more hurricanes. Seems to make sense.
The article then links to a study that supposedly shows the opposite, that warmer waters will decrease hurricanes.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2364087920080123?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
From the article:
But the new study, by oceanographer Chunzai Wang of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Sang-Ki Lee, a scientist at the University of Miami, examined 150 years of hurricane records and found a small decline in hurricanes making landfall in the United States as the oceans warmed.
It seems to me ocean temperature may not have much to do with the formation of hurricanes since there has only a been a small decrease in their occurrence.
So it's only been a small decrease. And the hurricanes that do occur will be stronger.
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/02/22/study-warming-to-bring-stronger-hurricanes.html
1. It may save the rainforest
Warmer temperatures and added nitrogen from acid rain have actually been good for the vegetation in rainforests. And, even weirder, rainforests seem to be doing better with less rain. The theory is that less rain means less cloud cover, and it looks like what the plants lose in water, they gain in direct sunlight.
Hmm. I'm not sure if this true or not. Even if plant life common to rainforests can survive in drought situations, it can only survive for so long.
In conclusion, the small benefits that may result from global warming are greatly outweighed by the negative impact of global warming.
Original article: http://www.cracked.com/article_18563_6-global-warming-side-effects-that-are-sort-awesome.html
With that relatively pointless intro being said, I recently read an article about 6 good things that would supposedly happen as a result of global warming.
6. It could delay a far worse Ice Age
In general, humans do better in extreme heat than extreme cold--a lot more of us live around the warm equator than the frigid poles. So it makes sense that global warming wouldn't be nearly the disaster that, say, a new Ice Age would be. Especially when you take into account the fact that we've yet to find crops that like to grow under three feet of ice.
Well we haven't found crops that like to grow in temperatures above 140 degrees either.
A new Ice Age isn't the stuff of science fiction, either. These cooling periods have happened at least four times that we know about, caused by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun that happen from time to time. It's a regular cycle. Our current warming is not, however, part of that cycle. Right now we should be cooling down, but thanks to those brave souls who refuse to give up Hummers, make margaritas with diesel-powered blenders and drive their hovercrafts to get the daily mail, we're not. This may not be all bad news, if the warming will wind up delaying or blunting the effects of the next Ice Age, as some experts think it will.
I guess that's good for now, but what about when this cooling period ends and we enter a warming period? Luckily we'll all be dead before that happens.
5. Warmer winters mean fewer deaths
We try to keep things light-hearted here, so let's put it this way: Every winter someone, or 10,000 someones, forgets to turn up grandma's thermostat and by the time Christmas rolls around the family gathers to discover a Grandma-cicle under the Christmas tree.OK, that was actually much more disturbing than if we had just said it outright: Winter kills people. Not just from freezing to death, either; warmer winters will save people from dying of pretty much EVERYTHING. Studies have shown that cold causes more of almost every kind of death, from heart attacks to digestive system disorders to infectious diseases, all of which jump in cold winter temperatures.
Extreme heat also kills people. Maybe people in colder regions will be fine, but people who live in places that are already hot are going to have some problems to deal with.
What's that? Your life sucks? Here, let me make it suck a little harder.
4. We may grow more food
If you're a farmer in America or Europe, or a multinational conglomerate that owns all the farms, global warming is your friend. As temperatures rise, areas formerly barren, like tundra, will begin to produce vegetation. In addition, increased temps will create longer growing seasons and yields will also benefit from fewer crop-killing freezes. Canada and parts of Europe could start growing more food right away.
If you're a farmer in America or Europe, or a multinational conglomerate that owns all the farms, global warming is your friend. As temperatures rise, areas formerly barren, like tundra, will begin to produce vegetation. In addition, increased temps will create longer growing seasons and yields will also benefit from fewer crop-killing freezes. Canada and parts of Europe could start growing more food right away.
I already addressed this in an earlier post of mine, found here:
http://pigdisgusting.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-much-is-left-long-post-is-long.html
Crop yield will rise in some places and decrease in others, but overall it will be a decrease.
Also, remember that plants eat CO2. The additional CO2 global warming brings will increase photosynthesis in plants, making the process more efficient, requiring less water. With new, water-sipping plants, not only can we expect more food, trees and agriculture with fewer resources, but a cheaper, easier way to create biofuels, which up to this point have created more ecological damage than good.
There will be more CO2, yes, but all of the other things that will happen as a result of global warming will be bad for plant growth, such as increased acidic rain which will wash topsoil and cause other problems.
3. Cheaper imported goods
Ever since man realized that there was money to be made by piling valuable things on a boat and selling them to faraway lands where they're even more valuable, we've had one huge problem: To get back and forth between two of the biggest markets--Asia and Europe--your boats have to sail this massive pain-in-the-ass route...
We literally spent centuries trying to sail through the frozen Northwest Passage over Canada, even though expedition after expedition found themselves wedged in 20 feet of ice every time. Even after we built the Panama and Suez canals to make it less of a pain in the ass to get from one ocean to the other, it would still be hugely beneficial to have the Northwest Passage opened up.
Global warming is about to give it to us, because all of that ice is finally melting up there (for part of the year, anyway). If so, it'll shorten some shipping Europe-to-Asia shipping routes by half. Goods will get there faster, and cheaper.
I can't think of anything wrong with this one.
2. It might actually decrease hurricane
Right around Hurricane Katrina was when everybody started talking about how global warming would give us more hurricanes. The idea is that hurricanes are the result of heat energy getting released from the ocean, so warmer oceans means more hurricanes. Seems to make sense.
The article then links to a study that supposedly shows the opposite, that warmer waters will decrease hurricanes.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2364087920080123?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
From the article:
But the new study, by oceanographer Chunzai Wang of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Sang-Ki Lee, a scientist at the University of Miami, examined 150 years of hurricane records and found a small decline in hurricanes making landfall in the United States as the oceans warmed.
It seems to me ocean temperature may not have much to do with the formation of hurricanes since there has only a been a small decrease in their occurrence.
So it's only been a small decrease. And the hurricanes that do occur will be stronger.
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/02/22/study-warming-to-bring-stronger-hurricanes.html
1. It may save the rainforest
Warmer temperatures and added nitrogen from acid rain have actually been good for the vegetation in rainforests. And, even weirder, rainforests seem to be doing better with less rain. The theory is that less rain means less cloud cover, and it looks like what the plants lose in water, they gain in direct sunlight.
Hmm. I'm not sure if this true or not. Even if plant life common to rainforests can survive in drought situations, it can only survive for so long.
In conclusion, the small benefits that may result from global warming are greatly outweighed by the negative impact of global warming.
Original article: http://www.cracked.com/article_18563_6-global-warming-side-effects-that-are-sort-awesome.html
Friday, September 17, 2010
How much is left? (Long post is long)
We are all living on this tiny blue dot, all 6.8+ billion of us. Earth, with a circumference 40,041 km is just a speck of dust compared to most of our neighbors in the solar system. You could fit 1,000,000 earths in our sun, for instance, and that's just our sun. Compared to other stars in our universe, the sun is a puny little spark just waiting to burn out.
Meanwhile, the human population is growing exponentially. By 2050 we are expected to reach a population of 9 billion. That's about a 50% increase from the year 2000 in just fifty years. That's 3 billion new mouths to feed, 3 billion new consumers taking their share of the world's natural resources.
Most of the people reading this blog live in 1st world nations so the realization is not apparent. We can get water on whim just by walking to our kitchens. We can get electricity just by flipping a switch on the wall. We never go hungry because we have food in our refrigerators 24/7 and if we don't we can just drive 5 minutes down the road to the nearest grocery store.
We rarely think about the resources we are draining or the environmental impact we have when we are doing these things, because we are so used to them. It is hard for us to imagine the water running out or having no electricity or having no food, but in other parts of the world those occurrences are life as usual.
In the coming decades, we in the 1st world may have to awaken to the harsh reality of our bloated and inconsiderate lifestyle.
I'm starting with oil, because it seems to be in the news so much lately and because it will most likely be the first resource to run out.
How much oil is left? We have approximately 1,333 million barrels ready to pump. That is estimated to run out in 40 years. In just 4 years oil production will reach its peak. After that, the amount of oil we produce will fall sharply. By 2050 we will have used all but 10% of the world's oil.
There is probably more oil on earth, but it is hard to reach and may not be worth salvaging.
Water
Definitely the most important resource. One can only go up to 10 days without water (at an average temperature of 70 degrees. The higher the temperature the less days one can go without water.)
Only 3% of Earth's water is fresh water and of that, 68.7% is locked up in glaciers and ice caps. That means only about 2% of Earth's water is drinkable and easy to access.
Population growth, pollution, and climate change are stressing the already scarce water supply. Some parts of the world are effected more than others. More than 1 out of 6 people lack access to safe drinking water. More than 2 out of 6 lack water with adequate sanitation. That is 1.1 billion people and 2.6 billion people respectively.
By 2025 more than 2.8 billion people will face water scarcity. Most of these countries will be in Africa and west Asia.
The unimpeded growth of greenhouse gas emissions is raising the earth’s temperature. The consequences include melting glaciers, more precipitation, more and more extreme weather events, and shifting seasons. Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Changes in precipitation patterns increase the likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run production declines. Although there will be gains in some crops in some regions of the world, the overall impacts of climate change on agriculture are expected to be negative, threatening global food security.
See what I mean? We are smallllllllll.
Meanwhile, the human population is growing exponentially. By 2050 we are expected to reach a population of 9 billion. That's about a 50% increase from the year 2000 in just fifty years. That's 3 billion new mouths to feed, 3 billion new consumers taking their share of the world's natural resources.
Most of the people reading this blog live in 1st world nations so the realization is not apparent. We can get water on whim just by walking to our kitchens. We can get electricity just by flipping a switch on the wall. We never go hungry because we have food in our refrigerators 24/7 and if we don't we can just drive 5 minutes down the road to the nearest grocery store.
We rarely think about the resources we are draining or the environmental impact we have when we are doing these things, because we are so used to them. It is hard for us to imagine the water running out or having no electricity or having no food, but in other parts of the world those occurrences are life as usual.
In the coming decades, we in the 1st world may have to awaken to the harsh reality of our bloated and inconsiderate lifestyle.
This brings us to the motif: how much is left and how much longer?
Oil
I'm starting with oil, because it seems to be in the news so much lately and because it will most likely be the first resource to run out.
How much oil is left? We have approximately 1,333 million barrels ready to pump. That is estimated to run out in 40 years. In just 4 years oil production will reach its peak. After that, the amount of oil we produce will fall sharply. By 2050 we will have used all but 10% of the world's oil.
There is probably more oil on earth, but it is hard to reach and may not be worth salvaging.
Water
Definitely the most important resource. One can only go up to 10 days without water (at an average temperature of 70 degrees. The higher the temperature the less days one can go without water.)
Only 3% of Earth's water is fresh water and of that, 68.7% is locked up in glaciers and ice caps. That means only about 2% of Earth's water is drinkable and easy to access.
Population growth, pollution, and climate change are stressing the already scarce water supply. Some parts of the world are effected more than others. More than 1 out of 6 people lack access to safe drinking water. More than 2 out of 6 lack water with adequate sanitation. That is 1.1 billion people and 2.6 billion people respectively.
By 2025 more than 2.8 billion people will face water scarcity. Most of these countries will be in Africa and west Asia.
Food
The unimpeded growth of greenhouse gas emissions is raising the earth’s temperature. The consequences include melting glaciers, more precipitation, more and more extreme weather events, and shifting seasons. Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Changes in precipitation patterns increase the likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run production declines. Although there will be gains in some crops in some regions of the world, the overall impacts of climate change on agriculture are expected to be negative, threatening global food security.
Seems like the non-Industrial nations keep getting the shit end of the stick. Sorry rest of the world.
As stated previously, most places will be effected negatively by climate change, but some places will actually benefit. Here is a list of projected changes in production for the world's 8 largest growers (by the 2080s.)
Argentina +2.2%
Australia -15.6%
Brazil -4.4%
China +6.8%
India -28.8%
Mexico -25.7%
Russia +6.2%
U.S. +8% Every part of the U.S. will be effected differently
Pacific Northwest +26%
Rockies and Plains +47%
Southeast -18%
Southwest Plains -25%
There you have it folks. The Earth is, and has been, cooking on slow boil for quite some time and we're only now starting to feel the water simmer. If we intend to survive as a species we better do everything in our power to hightail it out of here while we still can. There have been 5 mass extinctions since life arose 3.7 billion years ago and the next one is right around the corner. There are only two options:tits or GTFO Leave Earth or die.
Rockies and Plains +47%
Southeast -18%
Southwest Plains -25%
There you have it folks. The Earth is, and has been, cooking on slow boil for quite some time and we're only now starting to feel the water simmer. If we intend to survive as a species we better do everything in our power to hightail it out of here while we still can. There have been 5 mass extinctions since life arose 3.7 billion years ago and the next one is right around the corner. There are only two options:
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