Global Warming - how much does it matter? What should be done?

[MorkandMindy]

Is Global Warming happening?

It is right to doubt a proposal of this nature before reshaping the entire economy
- though now it's beginning to look like it needs to be reshaped anyway.

'What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence'.

And there were real questions about the global temperature measurements:
1. Many weather stations in past were just outside urban areas but had been encroached upon and now had 'heat island' effects to some extent.
2. Originally weather stations were painted with whitewash having a calcium carbonate pigment but progressively this paint was replaced by titanium dioxide pigmented latex paint.

 

[MorkandMindy]

There are other ways to check on global temperatures:
1 a warmer ocean surface will evaporate more oxygen-18 isotope and the O-16/O-18 ratio has been preserved in fossils, ice cores and stalactites and stalagmites.

2 Boreholes reveal average land surface temperatures preserved from the past. Deeper boreholes have the heat produced in the Earth superimposed on this profile.

3 The humdinger is retreating ice caps on photographs of Mars

 

[MorkandMindy]

Martian warming is interesting:

What if it is mainly due to rising solar output? What if it is natural?

Does it matter if Global Warming is anthropogenic anyway?

I think the question is whether overall it is good or bad, and whether it will be in the foreseeable future.

 

[MorkandMindy]

As for the future, one big concern is possible methane release which will amplify the effect and turn the bearable into the unbearable.

So what actions can be taken?

As for the conventional answer of 'reduce anthropogenic CO2 output' well, don't also demand the President increase the GDP. Well that is if GDP means anything anyway, and pushing up the Dow Jones tends to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer.

With the present economic slump we have lower CO2 emissions now anyway so we seem to be achieving that one pretty well right now.

 

[Dave G.]

Global warming and cooling have been going on since the foundation of the world. If it's warming or cooling isn't in question. Mans part in it is.

 

[expos4ever]

Human-caused global warming has the status of well-established fact, by any reasonable measure.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

It doesn't matter. We are going to make it worse. That's what we do.

 

[timothyu]

There is no alternative unless the goal is in the pursuit of further riches.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

There is little profit in doing things the right way, not in the short term anyway.

 

[Francis Drake]

Climate change is a scam for making a tiny group of elites very rich and very powerful. All at the expense of the plebs.

 

[loveofourlord]

Climate change is a scam for making a tiny group of elites very rich and very powerful. All at the expense of the plebs.

As opposed to the oil barons....right?

I do think that the situation with oil right now might help push at least somewhat off of using it only.

 

[timothyu]

As opposed to the oil barons....right?

Same people basically. If anyone has been paying attention, the polluters are the ones coming up with money making 'solutions' that are accomplishing nothing but creating a new platform for profit.. Win win either way.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Some options to assess

Reflection: Long distance jet flights change to high sulfur fuel for the high altitude portion of the flight. The jet contrails will then be a very fine long lasting white that will soon spread evenly across the sky. The reflection will mean less heat will reach the Earth.

Cost: about zero
Time: Needs some more work to get the particle sizes right and to fully test it and see if it works as expected.

 

[timothyu]

Sulphur is a lot more deadly than fossil fuels. Also what goes up must come down.

 

[timothyu]

Personally I'm glad to have grown up before technology took over in the last few decades.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Placing solar panels in space and beaming the energy down in microwaves sounds dangerous, expensive and downright insane, but

what if we beam the microwaves down to a few sites in the Arctic tundra and the solar panels stay clean and efficient for a really long time and generate power around the clock?

 

[timothyu]

what if we beam the microwaves down do a few sites in the Arctic tundra and the solar panels stay clean and efficient for a really long time and generate power around the clock?

Clean? Won't happen. The reason the arctic ice is melting so fast is due to all the soot drifting over from China. Filthy ice won't stay frozen. Filthy solar panels that only last ten years anyway and are made with fossil fuels, won't function well either

 

[MorkandMindy]

And the efficiency of ordinary terrestrial solar panels is increasing while the cost comes down, a big improvement of efficiency should come with 2 or 3 layer panels as soon as those are affordable.

But one big obvious area for improvement is the huge amount of energy being wasted. A lot of the people in office buildings drinking coffee would be happier and better off in cafe s.

So on the one hand we have a candidate promising zillions to fight Global Warming and also a few trillion to create millions of well-paid middle class jobs. Doing what? He can't create jobs in private industry as readily as just tell various government departments to increase staffing levels. Then you know what happens, more legislation gets passed to give them something to do.

A hyper-expensive, fuel inefficient and misery making method for fixing unemployment.

 

[Kentonio]

Personally I'm glad to have grown up before technology took over in the last few decades.

You mean those happy days when fuel and paint contained high amounts of lead?

 

[timothyu]

You mean those happy days when fuel and paint contained high amounts of lead?

Think of it as encouraging social distancing back them. The whole country hadn't yet moved into one city.