Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted

Xue Sheng would be so unhappy if we didn't....
 
I should add, that while what some may call a "liberal" (a loaded word whose meaning has morphed as much as "conservative") I think Bush was right to not sign Kyoto, which placed far too much burden on the U.S., rather than imposing a strict across the board standard. Though, of course I have doubts about his motivations for doing so...

Additionally, the scientific process needs arguments like these-and "global warming," as a theory, almost falls into the same category as "intelligent design," in that it is largely untestable: we cannot limit all the factors but one and then make observation, except for computer modeling based on past data, which is suspect by those opposed to the concept, sometimes for legitimate reasons-at least, their questions are legitimate. There are, however, some incontravertable facts:

1) Since about 1750, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 286 parts per million to 380 parts per million, mainly from fossil fuels.

2)CO2 levels have not been that high in the past 420,000 (see post above) to 650,000 years.

3) CO2 continues to build in the atmosphere at a rate of about 1.5 parts per million per year.

4) The Earth's temperature has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1880 and is now warmer than it has been in 400 years.

5) Average global temperature is likely to rise somewhere between 2 and 10 degrees by 2100.

6) The heat will cause (is causing) global ocean levels to rise 3 to 39 inches in this century.

You should have a look here :

The planet's temperature has climbed to levels not seen in thousands of years, warming that has begun to affect plants and animals, researchers report in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Earth has been warming at a rate of 0.36°F per decade for the last 30 years, according to the research team led by James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

That brings the overall temperature to the warmest in the current interglacial period, which began about 12,000 years ago.

The researchers noted that a report in the journal Nature found that 1,700 plant, animal and insect species moved poleward at an average rate of about four miles per decade in the last half of the 20th century.
The warming has been stronger in the far north, where melting ice and snow expose darker land and rocks beneath allowing more warmth from the sun to be absorbed, and more over land than water.

Lastly,to clarify I should add that while our climate's principle driver is the sun, the transfer of solar energy is conducted by the so-called global conveyor, or thermohaline current, which is dependent upon two other factors: temperature differences and salinity. The likelihood that melting polar ice caps are affecting the state of this current are very high, given that they are reducing the salinity of the current as well as introducing new variations in temperature differential. Additionally, as I said, the process is pernicious: the polar ice caps reflect a great deal of the sun's heat back away from the polar regions, but as they melt, less and less heat is reflected away, and they will melt faster.

Our grandhildren are so screwed.
 
I agree that "global warming" has been morphed into a political thing. I also find it frustrating that only certain groups are targeted due to their unpopularity (ie: oil companies and factories mainly)

Here are some other interesting facts (taken from: Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options,* a 2006 report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization)

18% of CO2 comes from livestock
9% of CO2 comes from the care and transporting of livestock

2/3 of all ammonia and more than 1/3 of all methane in the atmosphere comes from cows. (methane is over 20 times FASTER at warming the climate than CO2).

Some other fun facts...

There are more than 1.5 BILLION cattle being raised for food in the world. This takes up 26% of the earth's ice-free land and 1/3 global cropland. One dairy cow produces the waste products of 20-40 people a day. 70% of the amazon's forests are now pasture lands for cows. A cow has to drink 2 gallons of fresh water each day to produce 1 gallon of milk. California is the largest producer of milk, the average dairy farm in CA has 900 cows (In Wisconsin they are smaller and the average is 85). The average cow eats 100lbs of feed and drinks 40 gallons of water a day. That is 90,000 lbs of food a DAY and 36,00 gallons of water a DAY for the average dairy farm in California.
 
Aye, it is a big problem that the focus on 'solutions' to the problems of man-made/husbanded pollution has a tendency to hit the more obviously 'industrial' targets and avoid other areas that are seen as 'natural'.

Sadly, much of farming these days is just as industrial as anything involving petrol and steel.

It is possible to farm in a more sustainable, semi-closed cycle, kind of way and we will have to go back to that in the end anyhow when the fuel is gone. As with anything else, it is a case of economic and political will.
 
There is talk of a "methane" tax on cattle production.......


I believe that was tried in Australia and it was voted down. I don't see why they shouldn't. Other things have taxes on them when they are disportionately using up resources (luxury taxes for example), one could also argue the "sin taxes" on items.
 
Healthy human digestion does not produce methane; the flammable component in human flatulence is primarily hydrogen, in the form of hydrogen sulfide......

(the **** I know about ****....:lfao:)


Can I call you when I'm cramming for my exams in organic chem? :lfao:
 
Healthy human digestion does not produce methane; the flammable component in human flatulence is primarily hydrogen, in the form of hydrogen sulfide......

(the **** I know about ****....:lfao:)

My missus will be delighted to know this.
 
Yeah, sure. I should amend that, though: healthy humans don't produce much methane......

...flatus will still burn, though, as everyone knows...:lfao:
I saw that episode of Mythbusters...then theres this guy.

Now, if Al Gore were to do this........ :D
 
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Now, if Al Gore were to do this........ :D

Thermonuclear_Explosion_64259_20080424.jpg
 

:lfao:

Not unless he's been eating a lot of French food...:lfao:

(That's a French device, on the island of Mururoa, in French Polynesia.. you can tell by the lack of a lithium ring....what's really cool is that you can see the front of the shockwave at the end of the atoll the camera is on, and the test itself was some thing like 20 miles away....)
 
I saw that episode of Mythbusters...then theres this guy.

Now, if Al Gore were to do this........ :D

Gee.....maybe a guy that forgets to lower the seat and won't put the cap back on the toothbpaste isn't such a bad kinda guy after all! ;)
 
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Interesting that you would point out the shockwave Elder. On the right hand side, would that be a tsunami heading straight for the camera or is the air so heated and compressed that the change in it's index of of refraction has caused it become opaque?
 
Interesting that you would point out the shockwave Elder. On the right hand side, would that be a tsunami heading straight for the camera or is the air so heated and compressed that the change in it's index of of refraction has caused it become opaque?

Nothing that complex-these were pretty fast photos for the time. In fact, it's possible I'm mistaken about the lithium ring, in that it's too early in the detonation for it to have appeard.What you're seeing there is actually sand kicked up by the very first disturbance in the air to reach the atoll where the camera was located. What you're seeing to the right on the horizon is probably an instrument bouy, and the shadows to left of the mushroom cloud are foliage at the end of the atoll ,or on another, smaller atoll, I'm not sure....mind you, the sound of that detonation hasn't reached where the camera was, another atoll called Fangataufa (?) about 43 km away.

Least, that's the way I've always understood it. I wasn't there....Mind you, if you were standing where that camera is(and someone may well have been) wearing a tie, before the wind really started to buffet you, before any other effects, and before you heard the sound, your tie, and all your clothes would be pressed tight against your body by the leading edge of the shockwave. I've experienced this effect-with large detonations of conventional explosives, of course-it's quite......disconcerting.
 
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