The Cycle of Global Warming 42

[LCruiser]

PSE said:

"For those who consider "excess" CO2 as good for plant growth and photosynthesis, please remember that plants also go through the respiration cycle and produce CO2 during the nightime hours."

This is a common display of warmers' failure to comprehend orders of magnitude. It's one reason there's so much panic these days.

Does anyone here truly think plants produce more CO2 in the nighttime than they consume during the day?

 

[z633]

Not to be an alarmist, but, as the global supply of oil dwindles, economies are ruined and famine becomes rampant, the probability of a major nuclear event increases to near 100%. At that point who cares about C02.

 

[epoisses]

PSE, I try to limit my impact on the environment too, but if it turns out to be necessary to turn back the clock of economic and social development 100 years to reach certain projected human CO2 emissions of which we don't know exactly what they do to the climate and of which we don't know exactly what potential effects there are (rising sea level, temperature changes) nor what the most effective solution would be to fight those effects, then.... well then I simply refuse.
I am too much of an engineer to act because of an unquantified doom scenario that doesn't convince me.

 

[LCruiser]

We will never run out of oil. It will just become too expensive. Alternate sources will become cost effective, as ethanol could well be, except that Mellon didn't want his oil market interrupted and Hearst didn't want his wood paper market (he cut down the trees to make the paper to sell his newspapers) jeopardized by the decorticator. You can search Mellon, Hearst, decorticator to get details. A lot of what looks to be chaff, but some good consistent info too. We do need to get alternate fuel sources into production to save bitumen for roads - there's no substitute for that yet...

 

[PSE]

At the one hand you have people who refuse to believe we are impacting the environment, (so nothing needs to be done) and on the other you have people claiming the end of the world (and someone else needs to do something about it). I am glad I am in neither camp as I have at least chosen to act to reduce or minimize my personal environmental impact. Global warming is a "rallying" issue for the moment which at least serves to raise some awareness.

Regards,

 

[GMcD]

I think my opinions are best expressed by Braxton Alfred in a "Letter to the Editor" of our local rag some time back:

"It is tempting to assert that anyone who believes an economist deserves what he gets. The problem is that we are all affected by the nonsense they peddle.

The fundamental problem that invalidates everything they say is their unwillingness to to take into account the value of natural services – clean air and water, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, forests and the hydrogen cycle, grasslands, pollinators etc. This value has been conservatively estimated to be on the order of $33 Trillion per year. Its continuing unrecompensed exploitation means that capital, not interest, is being spent – on the advice of economists. An implication of this fact is that growth – any growth – is unsustainable.

Economists prattle on about the “importance of growth” in order to “get sustainable increases in our standard of living” and are probably not even aware of the contradiction in that statement. (Note the emphasis on standard of living, not quality of life).

It is simply impossible to have a “sustainable increase” in anything. As Richard Douthwaite, an economist who is not for sale, observes in “The Growth Illusion”, growth “has enriched the few, impoverished the many and endangered the planet”.

Wake up folks. You cannot have it all – at least not for very long.

Braxton M. Alfred."

I think that about sums it up. Humans' selfish trick of assuming that resources are ours to use without proper cost assessments, and the pursuit of the quick buck, and "shareholder value" has become the mantra, and I feel sorry for those engineers who have put their ethics and grey matter on hold to "just do what the public/market demands". When did the engineers' acts say we all had to become slaves to others' wills? Many Provincial Engineering Acts in Canada are now incorporating a list of sustainability requirements into the Codes of Ethics, so it's something that we have to really start keeping in mind.

 

[Ashereng]

Many Provincial Engineering Acts in Canada are now incorporating a list of sustainability requirements into the Codes of Ethics, so it's something that we have to really start keeping in mind.

Can you provide a link? This is interesting.

Some industries are inherently unsustainable. For example, petroleum, where I work. I am very interested in seeing the verbiage.

Thanks in advance.

 

[GMcD]

APEGBC has the Sustainability Guidelines in the Code of Ethics here:

http://www.apeg.bc.ca/aboutus/sustainability/sustainguidelines.html

Go to any of the provincial engineering associations and look through their codes of Ethics and there is verbiage or at least a paragraph requiring consideration of environmental impacts etc.

 

[ivymike]

It is simply impossible to have a “sustainable increase” in anything.

Oh yeah? How about entropy?

 

[Ashereng]

Thank you for the link.

It makes sense that BC is taking the lead on sustainability. With regards to forestry and fisheries, it makes a lot of sense.

Would you have any information on how the coal and oil&gas industries are implementing this in BC?

 

[GMcD]

Ashereng: I don't know how those guys are complying, and I guess it really depends on how one defines implementing "sustainability" when it comes to exploiting the environment and fossil fuel burning. It comes down to complaints and enforcement. If no one is aware, or feels violated, and no complaints result, then the engineer carries on. However, given the information, even hard facts out there on direct harm to the environment (forget global warming for now), we do KNOW what kind of activities can and will "do harm to the environment and human welfare". Most professional engineering associations have some kind of wording in their respective code of ethics about "holding public welfare paramount". For example, this clip from the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of New Brunswick Code of Ethics: "hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public and the protection of the environment and promote health and safety within the workplace". Depending on how you define that, anyone knowingly burning fossil fuel and creating air pollution is in violation, since we all know how much airborne pollutants result from that activity, right?

It really depends on where you draw the line around personal ethics, vs living up to what is interpreted by wording like that in the Engineers' Codes of Ethics.....

 

[LCruiser]

GMcD -

You are correct, and furthermore when engineers ignore the primary priority of holding "paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public" (the rest might be a stretch) they drag us to mere technocracy and we become nothing more than mercenaries.

And, to refine your point, it's difficult to eliminate the *product* of fossil fuel burning - especially since we really don't know if it (CO2) is bad or good, overall, for the environment. To clear the air (so to speak) we should be concentrating on the *byproducts* of fossil fuel combustion - a much easier (more economical) process, and one which has proven benefits.

 

[Ashereng]

LCruiser,

I think the point was getting the oil out of the ground, processing it, and using it is enough of an unsustainable problem, without the controversy of CO2 as a pollutant.

The fact that coal oil and other fossil fuel is unsustainable means regardless of where you draw the definition of sustainability, fossil fule will be on the other side. For any engineer to implement sustainability, the only solution is to stop.

Well, where do we start?

- close all coal buring electric generating stations?
- stop all coal mining?
- close all oil refineries?
- stop all oil drilling and tar sands mining?
- stop using all synthetic fabrics?
- stop using PCB in transformers?
- stop NASCAR, FI and all other forms of racing?
- stop production of all automobiles?

How many respondents to this thread:
- drive hydrocarbon powered vehicles?
- heat their homes?
- cool their homes?
- utilize electricity from coal fired generating stations?

We as engineers produce lots of products, using lots of processes and materials that damage the environment.

I understand your desire to protect the earth, be environmentally friendly, be sustainable.

As they say, the devil is in the details.

What is the alternative? And who is willing to pay the price first?

Let say we all agree to stop everything that pollutes. What happens if China and India doesn't?

 

[LCruiser]

What if someone gives you a gift of a large amount of money. Will you not use that money because it's not "sustainable"? Use of fossil fuels will by supplanted by alternatives when the fossil fuels become rare enough and technology makes the alternatives cost effective enough. How many people use synthetic engine oil now?

And, China is bringing online a new coal power palnt every 5 days, and is scheduled to do that for the next 7 years anyway.

 

[Ashereng]

LC, I am FOR using fossil fuel.

I am arguing that there are some enineering areas/process/functions that are inerently NOT sustainable.

I agree that the environment needs to be protected, and sustainability should be strived for.

I don't know whether the two can be reconciled.

AND, selfishly, I don't know if I want to be the first to try.

 

[VisiGoth]

All the claimed sustainable energy sources on earth are from the sun. The sun is not sustainable. For all of our practical future the sun is good for long enough. Maybe some of our other non sustainable sources are sustainable enough until an alternative arrives.

jsolar

 

[jmw]

Oops!
Global Dimming!
No why haven't we heard about that before?
The sun is getting now getting brighter!

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Science/493983.html

It appears our "Global warming" experts have neglected not only methane produced by plants from their model, sun spot activity but now also the brightness of the sun.

Pretty soon we'll have to start a few volcanoes up to spread some sulphur and some dust in the air to compensate for all the smog and sulphur we've been taking out of our emissions and which have been cutting out sunlight.

Wake me up when some one out there really knows and can prove what's going on.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[electricpete]

I'm a latecomer to this thread. Hard to add much that hasn't already been said. But can't pass up the opportunity to put in my two cents.

I really agree with several sentiments expressed eloquently above:
1 - Taxes are the logical way to put the cost of polluting and the cost of using limited resources where it belongs,as a general principle.
2 - None of us is really expert enough to know the real answer.
3 - We have to rely on the so-called experts.
4 - The information is politicized on both sides, so important to be skeptical of anything we read.


What to make of the fact that a lot of countries have signed on to Kyoto at considerable expense, while the US has not.
Either:
A - Those countries have had their logic/objectivity hijacked by the far-left environmentalists.
OR
B - The US decision-makers in congress have had their logic/objectivity hijcacked by the far-right business interests, as well as substantial political interest in short-term economic performance over long-term environmental performance.

I don't have a hard time believing either one and perhaps a little of both.

As you read the facts and opinions presented and spun by experts on the internet, please be sure to keep a careful eye on who is presenting the information.


Both sides claim they own the scientific mainstream. Both sides claim to have thousands of scientists signed on to documents supporting their views.

I would offer my personal perceptions:
A - A fair number of the status-quo advocates (but certainly not all) are affiliated with business interests.
B - The big names at NASA, NOAA, and MIT/Woods-Hole have come out with views that somewhat mirror those of the environmentalists.

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[VisiGoth]

We should take some advice from our Native Americans and natives of the colder regions and learn to adapt, instead of trying to change the environment. In this case, it is the environment that is changing. We should adapt. The heating has been going a long time. Find out who will be hurt by the changing climate, and help them adapt.

An evil recently identified is for poison ivy. More CO2 makes for healthier ivy. But there is less news for the benefits to the poor nations of the word where farming will improve with more CO2.

It is pollution that is the evil related to oil, not the warming. If more warming means less pollution, the let the warming begin.

There is nothing today's science can do about the coming ice age. But who cares now? Global cooling is far more destructive than global warming. But both are change and change has good points and bad points.

 

[LCruiser]

Poison Ivy isn't the only thing that grows better with higher CO2. CO2 isn't just fertilizer for plants, as some insinuate. It's food. There's a big difference.

Here's a summary of CO2's effects on fruit growth:

"Based on the voluminous data summarized by Idso and Idso (2000) for the world's major food crops, the calculations we have made for wheat can be comparatively scaled to determine what the past 150-year increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has likely done for other agricultural staples. Doing so, we find that the Industrial Revolution?s flooding of the air with CO2 has resulted in mean yield increases of 70% for other C3 cereals, 28% for C4 cereals, 33% for fruits and melons, 62% for legumes, 67% for root and tuber crops, and 51% for vegetables."

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V4/N28/EDIT.jsp