| Author | Message | ||
     notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 3128 Registered: 5-2001  |
85 percent of Americans believe global warming is "probably happening". Almost half say it's a very important issue, up from 31 percent in 1998; and 52 percent favor government mandates in response, like curbs on power-plant emissions and tax breaks to advance clean energy tech.  | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 13266 Registered: 1-2003  |
Won't the head-in-the-sand people merely discredit Time as one of the liberal media? | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 3129 Registered: 5-2001 |
Some certainly will. Fortunately, their membership is dropping. | ||
| Darryl Strawberry Supporter Username: Strawberry Post Number: 7013 Registered: 10-2001  |
I was feeling bad for Notehead because this thread went unnoticed. So I've kicked it up. Maybe Notehead can tell us exactly what the article says. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 6091 Registered: 12-2001  |
Or maybe you could read it? | ||
| Darryl Strawberry Supporter Username: Strawberry Post Number: 7014 Registered: 10-2001 |
Will there ever be a day on MOL when Duncan actually contributes? Keep this up and we may have to start calling you Tom Reingold the second.  | ||
| dougw Citizen Username: Dougw Post Number: 779 Registered: 3-2005 |
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| dougw Citizen Username: Dougw Post Number: 780 Registered: 3-2005 |
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| dougw Citizen Username: Dougw Post Number: 781 Registered: 3-2005 |
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| Eats Shoots & Leaves Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 3172 Registered: 9-2001  |
Yes, Doug, good point. Time has posted lots of covers that we should (have been) worried about, very worried. | ||
| dougw Citizen Username: Dougw Post Number: 782 Registered: 3-2005 |
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| dougw Citizen Username: Dougw Post Number: 783 Registered: 3-2005 |
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| dougw Citizen Username: Dougw Post Number: 785 Registered: 3-2005 |
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| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 2018 Registered: 8-2003  |
dougw is on to something. Obviously the editors of Time are delusional:  | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 13285 Registered: 1-2003 |
I guess the point is that if someone was ever wrong, they're always to be mistrusted. And of course, I don't go along with that. | ||
| themp Supporter Username: Themp Post Number: 2735 Registered: 12-2001  |
I don't think Time was celebrating Hitler in April of 1941, after the Blitz, fall of Paris, etc. Seems kind of silly to use that evidence to imply that Time's article on Global Warming in wrongheaded. Takes a conservative to make such specious critiques. | ||
| Innisowen Citizen Username: Innisowen Post Number: 1864 Registered: 3-2004 |
No, themp, It doesn't take a conservative to make specious critiques. It merely takes somebody who looks at the surface only, and for whom content and reality are msyteries. Hmmm, that probably DOES describe the current administration also, come to think of it. | ||
| themp Supporter Username: Themp Post Number: 2737 Registered: 12-2001 |
That's the odd thing about watching the Colbert Report; his deliberate shallowness is essentially not different than that of most blowhard pundits - the smear tactics, the categorical dismissal of huge amounts of evidence based on some crazy reason (like a magazine cover from the 1940's), the tedious invoking of some kind of kriptonite phrase like "saffron robe" or "elite" or "Jason Blair" to refute perfectly reasonable arguments without listening to them. Most of it is camp, but then sometimes you are struck with poignancy when you see someone on this board who has internalized it and is living it like it is serious. It must be like living inside one of those snow globes and thinking it's the real world. | ||
| dave23 Citizen Username: Dave23 Post Number: 1577 Registered: 5-2001 |
That's what makes Colbert's satire so good. He bumps it up just a notch and nails what had seemed unsatirizable. | ||
| themp Supporter Username: Themp Post Number: 2739 Registered: 12-2001 |
I've warmed up to it. And I've gotten a little tired of Jon Stewart. He is heaping on the ticks and quirks just like Letterman did. | ||
| Innisowen Citizen Username: Innisowen Post Number: 1865 Registered: 3-2004 |
I meant to write "mysteries," but keyed incorrectly. | ||
| Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1491 Registered: 10-2004 |
I think we all knew that Ennis. | ||
| Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1492 Registered: 10-2004 |
Oh, I'm sorry but I meant Innis, but typed it in wrong. My bad. | ||
| Innisowen Citizen Username: Innisowen Post Number: 1866 Registered: 3-2004 |
Yes, but it bugged me to leave it uncorrected. | ||
| dave23 Citizen Username: Dave23 Post Number: 1578 Registered: 5-2001 |
Colbert does make Stewart seem just a bit tired. But Colbert's format probably has an expiration date, but Stewart's doesn't. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 4649 Registered: 5-2001 |
Most moderately well-read people know that Time's "Man of the Year" is not an award for good behavior, or an expression of admiration, but instead notes a person who has had a substantial effect on the world that year. It would be hard to dispute that Stalin and Hitler had substantial effects on the world. The fact that we don't like them doesn't make them any less substantial. You'll have to forgive the 1988 editors for now seeing 25 years into the future to know what would become of Arafat's promises. Perhaps you can send a copy of his obituary back to them through your time machine. Doubtless, too, at the time the recession cover was published there was, in fact, a recession. Asking how bad it will be is not in any way unreasonable. Unless, I suppose, a Republican is in the White House. Then it would be "boring," to quote a noted MOL personality. I was around in the '70s, and there was a big freeze. Older buildings on my college campus were closed because they were too expensive to heat. Buffalo got ten feet of snow at a time. So the cover is pretty accurate. | ||
| Gregor Samsa Citizen Username: Oldsctls67 Post Number: 481 Registered: 11-2002  |
Re-posted in this thread complements of Scrotis Lo Knows... Kyoto? No Go. How to combat "global warming" without destroying the economy. BY PETE DU PONT Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST Did the 1970s mark the beginning of an ice age? Scientists and the press thought so. In 1971 Global Ecology forecast the "continued rapid cooling of the earth." The New York Times reported in 1975 that "many signs" suggest that the "earth may be headed for another ice age," and Science magazine that this cooling could be the beginning of "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age." It seemed sensible because, as NASA data show, there was indeed a 30-year, 0.2-degree Celsius cooling trend from 1940 to 1970. So are we now at the beginning of a global warming catastrophe? Again, scientists and the press think so: the same NASA data indicates a 0.7-degree warming trend from 1970 to 2000. The Washington Post's David Ignatius reflects the media view in saying that "human activity is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate." But it is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible. The Washington Policy Center reports that Mount Rainier in Washington state grew cooler each year from 1960 to 2003, warming only in 2004. And Mars is warming significantly. NASA reported last September that the red planet's south polar ice cap has been shrinking for six years. As far as we know few Martians drive SUVs or heat their homes with coal, so its ice caps are being melted by the sun--just as our Earth's are. Duke University scientists have concluded that "at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output." So what is causing these cooling and warming increases? Normal temperature trends? Solar radiation changes? Or human-caused global warming? There is little we can do about historical temperature or solar heat cycles, but if human actions are in fact causing global warming, what could be done to reduce it? One remedy is improved technology, and here America is making significant progress. Philip Deutch's article in the December edition of Foreign Policy lays it out: "Today's cars use only 60 percent of the gasoline they did in 1972; new refrigerators about one third the electricity; and it now takes 55 percent less oil and gas than in 1973 to generate the same amount of gross domestic product." The cost of wind power production is down 80% over 20 years, and "the cost of solar power has fallen from almost $1 per kilowatt to less than 18 cents." On the other hand, there are some remedies that are not being pursued. "More than 50 percent of U.S. consumers," Deutch notes, "have the option of buying electricity generated from renewable energy sources. . . . Only 1 or 2 percent actually do." And while two dozen low-pollution nuclear power plants are under construction in nine nations (and another 40 are planned), in America government regulation has virtually stopped nuclear plant construction. Our last nuclear plant was ordered in 1973 and completed in 1996, and no others are under construction. We also know that the Kyoto Treaty will do little to solve the carbon-dioxide problem. Masquerading as a global environmental policy, Kyoto exempts half of the world's population and nine of the top 20 emitters of carbon dioxide--including China and India--from its emissions reduction requirements. It is in fact an effort to replace the world's markets with an internationally regulated (think U.N.) global economy, perhaps better described as a predatory trade strategy to level the world's economic playing field by penalizing the economic growth of energy efficient nations and rewarding those emitting much greater quantities of noxious gasses. Which explains why in 1997 the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to oppose the signing of any international protocol that would commit Western nations to reduce emissions unless developing countries had to do so as well. As The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, almost none of the nations that signed on are meeting Kyoto's requirements. Thirteen of the original 15 European signatories will likely miss the 2010 emission reduction targets. Spain will miss its target by 33 percentage points and Denmark by 25 points. Targets aside, Greece and Canada have seen their emissions rise by 23% and 24%, respectively, since 1990. As for America, our emissions have increased 16%, so we are doing better than many of the Kyoto nations. In the December 2004 issue of Environment, Princeton professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala calculated what actions would be necessary to keep global emissions at their current levels for the next 50 years. Rejecting the Kyoto approach, they conclude that new energy strategies would be monumental efforts that "must be implemented on a massive scale across all sectors of the economy and in countries at all stages of economic development": For starters, replace every burned-out incandescent light bulb in the world with a compact fluorescent bulb, which is four times as energy-efficient. Then construct two million new wind turbines--a 50-fold expansion of wind power machines. To function properly they must be far enough apart to allow wind pressure to flow between them, so about five turbines per square mile can be installed. But windmill construction is controversial. The environmentally dedicated Kennedy family has already forbidden wind power off their summer island of Nantucket. Why? Because, says Robert Kennedy Jr., a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, the wind farm would "damage the views from 16 historic sites." One of them, of course, is the Kennedy family summer compound. Using natural gas instead of burning coal would help a great deal too. Messrs. Socolow and Pacala say that "50 large liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers docking and unloading every day" would do it, or "building the equivalent of the Alaska natural gas pipeline . . . every year." In America today LNG terminals and pipelines can't get anywhere near the support they need from members of Congress or state legislators, for both are believed to be too dangerous and too environmentally risky. One million square miles--about the size of India--of cropland to grow sugar cane to turn into ethanol is another option the Princeton scholars offer up. Finally there is the nuclear energy option, not one that the U.S. has been willing to participate in for the past 30 years. Globally some 700 new nuclear plants would be needed to meet the carbon-dioxide reduction goal, assuming of course that we can deal with the nuclear weapons risk posed by each of these plants, as we are now trying to do with Iran. None of these startling recommendations--except perhaps the light bulbs--are economically or politically inexpensive, and none are going to come to pass in the foreseeable future. So the Princeton professors suggest a 10-year, 20% solution as a first step: just 400,000 new wind turbines, 140 nuclear plants, 10 natural gas pipelines and so forth. As these politically explosive ideas are endlessly debated, the best things we can do are, first, to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in ways that do not reduce economic growth; and second, to keep improving technology--in cars, electric generating plants and manufacturing machinery. Third, we must keep researching the real cause of climate change to understand better the sun's solar output and the historical rise and fall of global temperatures. Finally, we must permanently reject the Kyoto concept, for international regulation of the world's economic process would be the beginning of the end of the world's opportunities. Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 4652 Registered: 5-2001 |
Not to nitpick, but burning natural gas and ethanol also produces carbon dioxide. They'd help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, true, but would do little about global warming. | ||
| Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1493 Registered: 10-2004 |
There is always Hydrogen which "is one of the most promising of all the alternative fuels to be the power source of tomorrow for cars. It is easily produced through electrolysis, simply splitting water (H20) into oxygen and hydrogen by using electricity. When it's burned, it turns into heat and water vapour, making it one the cleanest burning of all fuels". | ||
| Gregor Samsa Citizen Username: Oldsctls67 Post Number: 483 Registered: 11-2002 |
There's a hydrogen fuel depot at a gas station on Flatbush Ave in downtown BKLYN...I think NYC has some hydrogen-powered cars in their fleet. The main question for me is if they can make any of these technolgies affordable to the masses. I remember seeing somewhere recently tht you have to drive your Toyota hybrid for 5 years to break even on the costs, without factoring in battery replacement. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 13292 Registered: 1-2003 |
Hydrogen sounds promising. It deserves more R&D. But there's no such thing as a free lunch. The heat that it will produce is not totally benign, when you add up all the heat we will generate. That's my guess. | ||
| gj1 Citizen Username: Gj1 Post Number: 323 Registered: 11-2003 |
The Myth of the Hydrogen Economy | ||
| Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1495 Registered: 10-2004 |
Tom, the heat problem can be worked on I would think. I also am not sure I see the difference between a conventional catalytic converter in standard cars and a hydrogen engine. Both require combustion right? How is one hotter than another? I'm sure switching to Hydrogen would be EXTREMELY costly to begin with. But eventually would be less costly. The issue is (I'm hypothesizing here) that the automotive industry is unbelievably profitable as it is now -- why change? Also, the oil companies have an ENORMOUS amount of money to lose. They will drag their heels kicking and screaming the whole way. Then to compound the problem, our government is doing little next to nothing to support and nurture alternatives like this. | ||
| gj1 Citizen Username: Gj1 Post Number: 326 Registered: 11-2003 |
Alley, take a look at the article I linked to above, it's worth a read. I guess I'll just post it: The Myth of the Hydrogen Economy by Dale Allen Pfeiffer There is a lot of talk about the hydrogen economy. It is at best naïve, and at worst it is dishonest. A hydrogen economy would be a pitiful, impoverished thing indeed. There are a number of problems with hydrogen fuel cells. Many of these are engineering problems which could probably be worked out in time. But there is one basic flaw which will never be overcome. Free hydrogen is not an energy source; it is rather an energy carrier. Free hydrogen does not exist on this planet, so to derive free hydrogen we must break the hydrogen bond in molecules. Basic chemistry tells us that it requires more energy to break a hydrogen bond than to form one. This is due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and there is no getting around it. We are working on catalysts which will help to lower the energy necessary to generate free hydrogen, but there will always be an energy loss, and the catalysts themselves will become terribly expensive if manufactured on a scale to match current transportation energy requirements. All free hydrogen generated today is derived from natural gas. So right off the bat we have not managed to escape our dependency on nonrenewable hydrocarbons. This feedstock is steam-treated to strip the hydrogen from the methane molecules. And the steam is produced by boiling water with natural gas. Overall, there is about a 60% energy loss in this process. And, as it is dependent on the availability of natural gas, the price of hydrogen generated in this method will always be a multiple of the price of natural gas. Ah, but there is an inexhaustible supply of water from which we could derive our hydrogen. However, splitting hydrogen from water requires an even higher energy investment per unit of water (286kJ per mole). All processes of splitting water molecules, including foremost electrolysis and thermal decomposition, require major energy investments, rendering them unprofitable. Hydrogen advocates like to point out that the development of solar cells or wind farms would provide renewable energy that could be used to derive hydrogen. The energy required to produce 1 billion kWh (kilowatt hours) of hydrogen is 1.3 billion kWh of electricity. Even with recent advances in photovoltaic technology, the solar cell arrays would be enormous, and would have to be placed in areas with adequate sunlight. We must also consider the water from which we derive this hydrogen. To meet our present transportation needs, we would have to divert 5% of the flow of the Mississippi River. This would require yet more energy, further reducing the profits of hydrogen. This water would then have to be delivered to a photovoltaic array the size of the Great Plains. So much for agriculture. The only way that hydrogen production even approaches practicality is through the use of nuclear plants. To generate the amount of energy used presently by the United States, we would require an additional 900 nuclear reactors, at a cost of roughly $1 billion per reactor. Currently, there are only 440 nuclear reactors operating worldwide. Unless we perfect fast breeder reactors very quickly, we will have a shortage of uranium long before we have finished our reactor building program. Even hydrogen fuel derived from nuclear power would be expensive. To fill a car up with enough hydrogen to be equivalent to a 15 gallon gas tank could cost as much as $400. If the hydrogen was in gaseous form, this tank would have to be big enough to accommodate 178,500 liters. Compressed hydrogen would reduce the storage tank to one tenth of this size. And liquefied hydrogen would require a fuel tank of only four times the size of a gasoline tank. In other words, a 15 gallon tank of gasoline would be equivalent to a 60 gallon tank of hydrogen. And, oh yes, to transport an equivalent energy amount of hydrogen to the fueling station would require 21 times more trucks than for gasoline. Compressed and liquefied hydrogen present problems of their own. Both techniques require energy and so further reduce the net energy ratio of the hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen is cold enough to freeze air, leading to problems with pressure build-ups due to clogged valves. Both forms of hydrogen storage are prone to leaks. In fact, all forms of pure hydrogen are difficult to store. Hydrogen is the smallest element and, as such, it can leak from any container, no matter how well sealed it is. Hydrogen in storage will evaporate at a rate of at least 1.7% per day. We will not be able to store hydrogen vehicles in buildings. Nor can we allow them to sit in the sun. And as hydrogen passes through metal, it causes a chemical reaction that makes the metal brittle. Leaking hydrogen could also have an adverse effect on both global warming and the ozone layer. Free hydrogen is extremely reactive. It is ten times more flammable than gasoline, and twenty times more explosive. And the flame of a hydrogen fire is invisible. This makes it very dangerous to work with, particularly in fueling stations and transportation vehicles. Traffic accidents would have a tendency to be catastrophic. And there is the possibility that aging vehicles could explode even without a collision. On top of this, we must consider the terrific expense of converting from gasoline to hydrogen. The infrastructure would have to be built virtually from scratch, at a cost of billions. Our oil and natural gas based infrastructure evolved over the course of the past century, but this transition must be pulled off in twenty years or less. Automobile engineers and others within the industry do not believe we will ever have a hydrogen economy. Daimler-Chrysler has admitted as much. Rather than developing a hydrogen economy, it makes more sense—and will always make more sense—to buy a more efficient car, ride public transport, bicycle or walk. | ||
| themp Supporter Username: Themp Post Number: 2748 Registered: 12-2001 |
Good article. I crunched the numbers myself (very amateurishly) on corn based fuel, and quickly came to the conclusion that it was more or less a sham. It took the dinosaurs a long time to make all that oil. a few acres of corn just don't have the BTUs. | ||
| Matt Foley Citizen Username: Mattfoley Post Number: 607 Registered: 6-2004  |
if we can produce energy from windmills, surely we can create a smaller device that creates amps everytime we masturbate....home heating oil and nat gas demand would collapse. | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 3132 Registered: 5-2001 |
If you have ever wanted to visit a coral reef, go now, because coral all over the world is dying as a result of global warming and resulting diseases.  article from AP | ||
| kenney Citizen Username: Kenney Post Number: 763 Registered: 11-2003 |
Stay in New Jersey and let the south come to you; global warming...bad for the world, good for New Jersey. that should be our new state motto. | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 3134 Registered: 5-2001 |
By the way, the Pfeiffer article is very interesting but there are many explanations for how hydrogen can be an appropriate replacement for fossil fuels at websites like this one: www.h2nation.com | ||
| kenney Citizen Username: Kenney Post Number: 764 Registered: 11-2003 |
Matt, stay off the hard stuff. |
