OT Wet Weekend

[Flyby PC 23]

Global warming or freak weather?

 

Bit close to home either way.

 

[hairyspin 1]

Not half! Shouldn't have to cover the stone with wet sacking, mind you. I hope you've got the dog on a short leash!

[MikeDixonUK 5]

I'm lucky enough to be in the part of Cumbria that hasn't been flooded recently, the only effect of the flooding on us being that our internet is slow (that's what BT said anyway) but that's hardly anything to complain about when there are knocked out Bridges and the like a short ride up the Motorway.

[ConradB 0]

It's not global warming anymore. It's now called climate change. Since the sun has settled down, and not too many sunspots this last year, or for the last 7 really, the weather has been cooling. Nature does what nature does. Man's effect. Miniscule in comparison.

[Flyby PC 23]

Yes, Cumbria got it worse than us. Terrible pictures.

 

Folks get so upset about the lack of flood defences, but if we're all in for more and more rain, I think the answer involves a lot more broad leaved tree planting up stream to slow down the run off of water from the hills. We seem to battle flooding when it's at it's strongest, but it strikes me we need an earlier intervention.

 

I think I'm ok however. My floor level will be about 600mm higher than the worst ever flood level on record. Doesn't sound much, but once a river has burst it's banks, it takes a huge amount of water to raise the level. I'm not complacent, but I've done all I can. Local Enterprise Body hold all the commercial land locally, but wouldn't sell any land to my business, which only left the flood plain. Real nice of them. They've been a bigger threat to my business than any global warming.

 

Edit - You're right ConradB, this flooding isn't tidal, and the answer to this flooding is trees. Nature vs Nature.

 

As for global warming? This was our second '100 year flood' in 4 years. - I'm agnostic about it.

Edited November 21, 2009 by Flyby PC

[ConradB 0]

I found this some time ago, that was made in Britain.

 

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&q=the%20great%20global%20warming%20swindle%20video&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3A*&q=the+great+global+warming+swindle+video&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&qvid=the+great+global+warming+swindle+video&vid=4860344067427439443

[Flyby PC 23]

I saw that ConradB. As I recollect, there was general agreement that global warming was happening, but massive dispute about the cause, and deep suspicion of those jumping on the bandwagon.

 

It's only when Governments decide to stop making cars and selling fuel that I might think they're serious. I'm very suspicious why saving the world raises so much revenue which doesn't get spent on saving the world.

 

 

I don't have the answers, but I don't like all the plundering going on. Our oceans are being emptied of fish, our rain forests and habitats are disappearing. If the ECO lobby can stop that, or even slow it down, then until something better turns up, I feel inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, however big that doubt might be.

[ConradB 0]

Exactly Flyby. In truth, if nature wanted to, nature could shake us off like a bad tick if wanted to. To quote the late George Carlin. Where I'm at in Michigan, we had about 4 days of summer this year. It was always cool and or raining. Lake Huron and the rivers and lakes below it were up 2 ft above the normal level, and are anticipated to go up another foot by next year. So if the cooling trend and wet weather continue, the big lakes will be close to what they were when I was a youngster back in the late 60's and early 70's. But the cry for the last 20 years has been that the lakes are drying up, even though they go through cycles of high and low water volume. A discovery was made a couple months ago, where tree trunks were found under the waves of the Lake Huron, complete with root systems and everything, and that the big lake at one time was about 300 ft shallower than it is today. So it goes through cycles and that's about it. Nothing more nothing less really.

 

Anyways, lets get back to flying!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I have relatives in Kendal...and my thoughts are with the Policeman's family who died yesterday.

You can't really prevent that sort of thing happening...a town called Morpeth (just up the road from me in Newcastle) was flooded last year.

 

Just one of those things...But, The advice has to be..dont live too near a River

[Red-Dog 3]

Global warming as been happening since time began,we might slow it down but lets face facts climate change is part of the planets life.

 

 

[Bullethead 12]

Global warming as been happening since time began,we might slow it down but lets face facts climate change is part of the planets life.

 

Damn good thing, global warming. Without it, none of us would exist. It's not something the eco-whacks like to publicize, but Earth is really out beyond the Sun's so-called "Goldilocks zone", where liquid water can exist without other factors at work. The only reason Earth isn't frozen solid is because of global warming, greenhouse gases, etc.

 

Also counter to the doomsayers, every time the world has been hotter than it is now, life has flourished. Strangely, it wasn't wiped out by super hurricanes or whatever. Opening up more land area to more species always results in more speciation, greater diversity, and more healthy ecosystems. Sure, it's a bad thing for the very few cold-specialized things like polar bears, but it's a net gain given the benefits to everything else.

 

And for those who say the world now is hotter than it's ever been, I say go try growing wheat with Iron Age agricultural tech in Greenland right now. I dare you. Or try growing maize with Stone Age tech on the Colorado Plateau. Both those things were not only possible, they sustained thriving cultures, in the Medieval Optimum Period (now called the Medieval Warm Period by the doomsayers), but have become impossible since the Little Ice Age.

[Rickitycrate 10]

The idiot speaks. The global warming game is a political ploy to tell us how to live our lives. Thank God for global warming I say. It seems that according to scientific evidence the earth cycles through what is known as Ice Ages and just when does the next one start I wonder. The earth is not a static, fixed unchanging entity. I understand the warming process stopped in 2001 and has leveled off and even gotten cooler the last couple of years. I just saw the Global warming authority know as Algore speaking on the Tonight show about a new idea called geothermal heat and that it is a free resource and that the earth's core temperature is some million degrees. Interesting Al but I don't buy it. Oh and if you guys were wondering I'm the idiot. But you knew that.

 

My condolences to all who suffer from unfavourable weather. It can seem a helpless situation and overwhelming. I hope you and your loved ones are safe.

Edited November 22, 2009 by Rickitycrate

[Flyby PC 23]

Algore speaking on the Tonight show about a new idea called geothermal heat and that it is a free resource and that the earth's core temperature is some million degrees. Interesting Al but I don't buy it.

 

 

Geothermal heating isn't new. I'm actually installing it.

 

If you check the temperature behind your refridgerator, you'll find it's warm. Heat you remove from inside the fridge has to go somewhere. A fridge wastes that heat, a heating system captures it. Geothermal heating uses the same physics, but in reverse. You remove heat from the ground and discharge that heat in your building. 50m of buried ground loop will give you 1Kw of heat energy. It isn't free exactly, it's true you don't pay for the heat input, but you do have to run two pumps to force your coolant round the ground loop and also around your underfloor heating system. It is pretty efficient, but can be dear to install.

 

I like the idea, but it won't save the world. It should however deliver me from the scandalous daylight robbery of fuel duty which we pay in the UK.

 

Edit - There is a similar idea using a heat exchanger which works using air. Provided you have a temperature gradient higher than five degrees from inside to out, you can get a heating system to work which doesn't need a ground loop. Kinda like air conditioning in reverse. It's supposed to work, but I already had 170m of 2m deep trench dug when I heard about it, and the heat exchanger was more expensive.

 

These systems are slow response however, and rely on continual running in the background, but they do deliver.

 

Edit 2 - You can also fling your ground loop in a loch or lake, and it will also work.

Edited November 22, 2009 by Flyby PC

[Fortiesboy 3]

Well chaps, I hope that you are right, I really do.

 

But this planet before has not had systematic stripping of rainforests, relentless burning of fossil fuels creating extremely high levels of carbon dioxide,

These are unnatural events, not something which comes and goes in cycles.

These are a number of factors facing us which are not cyclic- the prime example being the ever increasing human population, which is the one which drives all the others.

 

In my job, as I expect you find/found in yours, I had bosses whose answer to an upcoming difficulty which needed to be sorted by them, was

 

"Problem? What problem? "

[Mr. Lucky 0]

I won't get into the environ 'mental' debate here but I will say I certainly enjoy flying my smoke-belching DFW over Flanders and polluting the skies of France and Belgium

[Wels 2]

Hi,

 

i wonder if anyone remembers what he learned at school, let alone those who maybe studied some natural science ?

 

Heavy rainfalls do not occur due to a cooling of the earth's atmosphere, but warming.

It was said, that before the temperature rises, there will be a few years of further cooling, which took place in the last 5-7 years, but it should have been much longer like 10-12 years - it is only the effect is now becoming self-amplifying. The CO2 mankind produces (b.t.w. in a portion that is well above what induced the time of the Perm in the earth's history) is - at first - good for plants, they breathe it and grow fast, given enough water. CO2 is being absorbed by all kinds of animals, and even by rock through chemical reactions. However if plants decay (or are being destroyed by eroding rain forests), they will set all this temporarily-stored CO2 free again, as long as they are not buried in an O2-free environment, like it happened in those big coal swamps in the geological time of the carbon. This is were all those gases were built up, and stored, until we began to pump it out of the earth and recycle the stored energy, filling up the atmosphere with CO2 again. We are speaking here of

1. draining sunlight "batteries" (coal, oil, gas) and

2. about setting CO2 free that has been absorbed in coal, and fossil fuels some hundred million years ago. (all oil and gas has been produced by plants, be it in terrestrial environments, or the sea through plankton).

 

A real "consumer" or buffer of CO2 today is still plankton and coral reefs, and the under-sea build-up of carbon-dioxide in Calcium-carbonate rock, additionally a good deal is held back in the watery masses of the oceans - the gigantic coal swamps like in the Carbon times are long gone, sorry no buffer left here.

 

The carbon dioxide stored, in stone like Calcium-carbonate or CaCO3 at a certain low temperature, is one of the most gigantic buffer that keeps the earth in a usually not-so-delicate equilibrium. The drilling cores of deep drilling ventures have made that perfectly clear. Which is by the way why the industry wants to sink CO2 into/under the earth again, in big caverns, or better mile-wide crack systems, to remove it from the atmosphere, they are well aware of their self-induced problem. If the atmosphere is being warmed up by whatever, the stored-away CO2 will be set free again - and we are also talking about the unfreezing Russian Tundra here with its billions of tons of CO2 gas hydrates.

 

The deep sea cores and Antarctic drilling ones have shown that all those buffers (which usually control a bit of CO2 excess, or starvage, for a short time of a hundred years), are now filled up with CO2 to their full capacity, and we still keep pumping just that it into the atmosphere. If you want real information you should just not ask lobbyists, ot the oil/gas industry, this is so ridiculous.

 

We are now having tornadoes in Germany, still small but growing, as well as flooding and lots of levee breaks. But hey, companies make money repairing this, insurance companies can raise their tariffs - climate change is a chance that fuels the economy lol. So f**k the Earth's cyclic systems, and biology - man is above all.

 

Greetings,

Catfish

[Flyby PC 23]

The only certainty I have regarding the Environment is that SOMEBODY is lying to me - big style!

 

Problem is, I don't know who it is.

 

Second problem is, with our hysterical media sensationalising everything and calling it news, the chances of me working out who the liars are, are actually pretty slim.

Edited November 22, 2009 by Flyby PC

[Mr. Lucky 0]

OK, I'll bite then. Follow the money. Without gloom and doom, these people become superfluous and no longer draw the money and notoriety. We all need to be better stewards of our environment and even 'above all man' will benefit from better ecology and efficiency. But this earth moves much more slowly and it does evolve and respond to changes over time, so these knee-jerk reactions are mostly sensationalism. Modern scientific method is to now conjure a conclusion and then find any evidence to support it, ignoring evidence to the contrary. They no longer observe, study and then conclude. We can all do a better job ecologically and we're learning now, it's even in our economic best interest to do so. The earth is a dynamic, complex, extremely adaptable environment, that, while seemingly fragile, moves with geological slowness and determination. We do not have enough data over the few years we've been recording to reach definite conclusions but only theories which may portend disaster. Theories that portend happiness and prosperity don't attract money and attention. Gloom and doom do. Man is not so powerful or omnipotent that the earth can't wreak havoc and destruction on us, and neither are we so powerful to destroy the earth. We may destroy ourselves, but the earth will outlive us. It's all in what you choose to believe and how much actual learning you're willing to do. In short, reason and long term ecology/energy culture is a sustainable answer.

[Wels 2]

Hello,

 

" ... Modern scientific method is to now conjure a conclusion and then find any evidence to support it, ignoring evidence to the contrary. They no longer observe, study and then conclude. We can all do a better job ecologically and we're learning now, it's even in our economic best interest to do so. ..."

 

I find this denying phenomenon much more interesting lol :

 

" ... Political psychology can help us answer these questions. First, climate change seems tailor-made to be a low priority for most people. The threat is distant in both time and space. It is difficult to visualize. And it is difficult to identify a clearly defined enemy. Coal executives may deny that global warming exists, but at the end of the day they're just in it for a buck, not hiding in caves in Pakistan plotting new and exotic ways to kill us.

 

Second, the dominant climate change solutions run up against established ideologies and identities. Consider the psychological concept of "system justification." System justification theory builds upon earlier work on ego justification and group justification to suggest that many people have a psychological need to maintain a positive view of the existing social order, whatever it may be. This need manifests itself, not surprisingly, in the strong tendency to perceive existing social relations as fair, legitimate, and desirable, even in contexts in which those relations substantively disadvantage the person involved. ..."

 

Rest is here:

http://www.guardian....-climate-change

 

 

Ah, yes their may be denying scientists who present themselves to the public rather than follow strict methods of studying in their laboratories - if they are scientists at all, and not paid lobbyists who just claim some science background. But right now it's not only scientists but laboratory workers of e.g. Exxon/Mobil who prove exactly by examination of drilling cores that the CO graph has risen almost logarithmic in a measured time of appx. 120 years back from now, in a way what took 18 million years back then when the climate changed due to dying global forests (for whatever "natural" reason) at the end of the Carbon period, and made the CO2 level "explode" - only that that took 18 million years until the Permian period "happened". It is anyway interesting what did happen in the next millions of years of the Permian period.

 

Certain examinations will not made public due to bad public reception, but then - if you think you are being belied, or do not trust - just imagine who will make the most profit, personally, of a certain point of view ? If a coal manager tells you there's nothing to worry about ? Or an oil company ? Or a president that came from the oil industry ? I plain deprive almost all politicians from knowing anything of what they talk about at all, and we will as well not hear bad news from the industry - bad for business. It is sad, but we should probably learn to use our brain, and let not think and decide some unlearned politicians or greedy industry for us.

It is "us" who they live from, they just seem to have lost this idea somehow.

 

Greetings,

Catfish

Edited November 22, 2009 by Wels

[Wels 2]

"Don't forget, we need to kill all the Livestock as they been proven to produce large amounts of Methane Gas"

 

 

 

Greetings,

Catfish

[Bullethead 12]

But this planet before has not had systematic stripping of rainforests,

 

I prefer the old term "jungle" myself. "Rainforest" was a term coined by the eco-whacks fairly recently to present jungles in a more favorable light, back when they were all about saving them. But even Greenpeace quickly got off that bandwagon, because it's undeniable that jungles are a net producer of greenhouse gases. Sure, the plants suck up CO2 and burp O2 during their lives, but the C02 they inhale goes no furhter than into their own physical structure. All during their lives, plants shed leaves and twigs, each of which rots and releases that CO2 again. Then the plant itself finally dies and rots, releasing the rest. And it's not just what the get from the air, but also from the ground, too.

 

So, if you're worried about too much CO2, you should indeed strip off the jungles and replace them with something less "harmful". After all, the photoplankton in the oceans are the real "lungs of the world".

 

relentless burning of fossil fuels creating extremely high levels of carbon dioxide,

 

Back when the fossil fuels were still alive, the world was much hotter than it is now. How did that happen? Do you think the cycads, treeferns, giant dragonflies, dinosaurs, and such had SUVs, factories, and whatnot that get blamed for "global warming" today? I kinda doubt it, but as they say, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Perhaps the archaeologists just haven't found any yet .

 

In my job, as I expect you find/found in yours, I had bosses whose answer to an upcoming difficulty which needed to be sorted by them, was

 

"Problem? What problem? "

 

Exactly. What problem? The world today is colder than it was circa AD 1100; we're still warming up from the Little Ice Age. And even when we reach the temperature of AD 1100, we'll still be much colder than we were at many other times in the Earth's history. As I said, go try growing maize on the Colorado Plateau with Neolithic tech, or wheat in Greenland with Iron Age tech, in quantities sufficient to feed fairly large populations. You can't do it because it's too cold right now. So to me, the problem seems to be that it's too cold, and we need to warm this planet up.

 

The whole eco-whack movement is the best example of the sci-fi concept of a "meme" that we now have. The whole green thing was started and fostered back in the Cold War by the Soviets, in an effort to get the US to hamstring its own economy because they knew they'd never win otherwise. The USSR is long gone, but the "meme" remains and still spreads like any other virus, now fostered by the EU for the same reason as the Soviet's started it.

 

Heavy rainfalls do not occur due to a cooling of the earth's atmosphere, but warming.

 

And guess what? Back when the world was warming, the Sahara wasn't a desert, but was fairly lush. If you go back far enough, it was pretty much a swamp. But more usefully, even into recorded history what is now the Sahara was the major source of food for the Roman Empire. Why? Because it rained more back then, because it was warmer. So again, why is it a bad thing if the world gets warmer?

 

It CO2 is being absorbed by all kinds of animals, and even by rock through chemical reactions. However if plants decay (or are being destroyed by eroding rain forests), they will set all this temporarily-stored CO2 free again, as long as they are not buried in an O2-free environment, like it happened in those big coal swamps in the geological time of the carbon. This is were all those gases were built up, and stored, until we began to pump it out of the earth and recycle the stored energy, filling up the atmosphere with CO2 again.

 

Except for humans, NOTHING alive on land gets buried when it dies except by some freak accident like a landslide or flood. Everything else, plant and animal alike, rots on the surface. Thus, all these dead things immediately release all the carbon they've absorbed over their lives. And human corpses aren't buried deep enough to really affect this, either, because they're quickly turned into worms and daisies, most of which also rot on the surface or are eaten by things that rot on the surface. The only carbon-based lifeforms that truly get buried are those of the deep sea, and the extremophile bacteria deep in the rocks. It's been this way since life began, and it always will be this way unless you want to go around sinking every fallen leaf and twig in the deep ocean. So the whole carbon thing the doomsayers rant about is hogwash.

 

Everybody keeps going on about CO2 like it's the big thing, but water vapor and methane are much more powerful greenhouse gases and water vapor is much more abundant than CO2. But guess what? The doomsayers don't mention either because trying to limit either won't cripple the US economy, which is the whole point of it all.

 

We all need to be better stewards of our environment and even 'above all man' will benefit from better ecology and efficiency.

 

Let's consider this a minute from the "above all man" perspective.....

 

The land area of this planet is only about 25% of the total surface. But even so, VAST tracts of land are uninhabitable, or are only seasonally inhabitable. Polar regions, deserts, jungles, swamps, high mountains, etc. And then there are the large areas of prime real estate locked up as nature preserves of 1 sort or another. Meanwhile, millions of people are starving to death, or are killing each other over water holes and arable land.

 

I hate to see starving kids. That bothers me a LOT. In fact, it bothers me so much that I'm perfectly willing to chop down every "rain forest" and thaw every polar bear into extinction to prevent just 1 kid from starving. I know, I'm a sick, evil bastard that way. Seeing an army of naked, starving kids crawling over the mountains of garbage outside Manilla warped my brain. Go ahead and hate me. I honestly don't know how I live with myself for letting that sight bother me so much.

 

Still, I submit that there's not a damn thing in the "rain forests", the tundra, the mountains, or the deserts that we can't do without. Sure, there are some interesting critters there, but they contribute exactly zero to the health and well-being of ANY civilized human, other than those who get paid to study them. OK, there are some uncivlized tribes here and there who hunt them, but if you asked them, I'm sure they'd tell you their life really sucks, what with most of their babies dying every year, the diseases and parasites they endure, etc.

 

So, it seems to me that all those critters and their various uninhabitable ecosystems are killing people. If we made it so that the only things alive on land were the plants and animals we eat, and the insects and bacteria they need to be healthy, and the climate was such that we could grow these things nearly to the poles (like how it was back in the dinosaur days), wouldn't this stop kids from starving? And wouldn't that be a good thing?

 

Some folks would say that reducing the world to 1 universal, and not-very-diverse ecosystem, would make us more vulnerable to extinction. I have to ask, HOW? The only land-based ecosystem that matters to human survival is the one our food grows in. Right now, it's nowhere near as big as it can be, so is more vulnerable to local disasters than if it covered the globe. Seen this way, all other ecosystems are at best pleasant decoration, at worst wasted space directly responsible for starving kids. Either way, it's all superfluous as long as there's insufficient land to feed the people we have today.

 

But all kidding aside, honestly, seriously, and sincerely, how can anybody put the survival of some useless, window-dressing critters few have ever heard of above starving children? But somehow the eco-whacks never seem to ask themselves that question...

 

But this earth moves much more slowly and it does evolve and respond to changes over time, so these knee-jerk reactions are mostly sensationalism.

 

Amen to that.

[Ras 0]

All of this writing because of a little rain! My Gosh, whats is becoming of this world. Seriously, I have much consideration for the flooding , loss of life and property that has been going on. But it has been going on for hundreds of years. And it will continue for the next hundreds of years

[almccoyjr 7]

Climate change has been going on 24/7/+4 billion years.

 

Currently, "we" call it the seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter.

 

Where I live we're experiencing a cooling down period right now. Sometime next year, we'll experience a warming period.

 

There will be periods of rain and periods of dry AND as always, the mileage will very.

 

plug_nickel (Al)

 

ps, please note I'm hoping everyone in the flood areas are ok; my experience is still to fresh.

[Flyby PC 23]

Hate to say it gents, but I find it kind of depressing to see so many people setting themselves against environmental issues.

 

You're presumeably seeing the same evidence I do, but I've seen nothing to convince me that Environmental changes are nothing to worry about, just as I'm equally unconvinced by the current arguments that the world is doomed. Personally, I think you're both wrong, but the underlying message is we cannot continue as we are.

 

I don't buy the 'everything is fine' argument, but nor do I accept 'We're f!!**ed and it's all your fault!' argument either.

 

I don't know if it's us who's changing the climate, but we are most certainly changing our world by plundering our wilnernesses to drive species to extinction by hunting them to the brink, destroying natural habitats, taking out important links in the food chain. It's everywhere. Even our cute little Puffins are in trouble because we harvest the sandworms they eat for fertiliser. I like the world as it is, complete with it's tigers, whales, eagles, bears, gorillas, rhinos, snow leopards, polar bears and every other critter who's only crime against us was being born.

 

I've never seen a wild tiger, whale, bear etc, but that's why they're so amazing. In the UK, we used to have bison, beaver, boars, bears, wolves, and eagles. The only predator we didn't exterminate was the fox, which we still hunt. Just as well we've got nice scenery because there's fk all else to look at.

 

Can we exist without these animals? Probably, but I rather hope we shouldn't have to.

 

One of the most forceful arguments the Environmentalists have is that 'We've screwed up everything else in our ignorance, what makes you think the climate escaped?". Even the most ardent pro-consumer would have to admit they have got a point.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Flyby PC

[Olham 164]

I have a record by Eyeless In Gaza, called "Caught in Flux". On the inner sleeve are photographs

made in Nuneaton, England, in the 50s it looks. A whole town flooded from the rains.

Not high, and not floating fast (that's what makes it dangerous), just kneedeep water. In the 50s.

So I'm sure it happened before, too.