How long the earth would last?

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ArtEChoke: My point is that there are more of these disasters happenning these days, and they come more frequently. Before such major destruction was rare, but now you see Indonesia, New Orleans and now Pakistan all wiped out within 12 months.

Saervok: To be honest, I can't believe how many people think that they can open fire and tee off on religion because they think it's bull****. Can't you people keep your hatred or contempt for religion to yourself or do you wish to continue to look more foolish than you claim I am...

Saber: I have some ideas on why North America consumes proportionately more oil than other nations, but that's widely off topic...

 

@ Darkwolf

If we assumed the atmosphere was not a limitless free dump site for waste, would that drive the cost of fossil fuels to the economic tipping point more quickly? Does circumspection not lend a little forceful economic guidance some credence?

 

Saber:

Using population to determine what is fair for consumption is not a fair or equitable way to divvy out anything. Different populations have different needs. Do you think it is unfair that those who live near the equator do not consume nearly as much wool as those who live above the tropics?

LNT,

We already have such charges in the US. People who drive cars that guzzle gasoline pay a tax for their cars (gas guzzler tax), and those who consume more gasoline pay more taxes as they consume more. If you are asking if raising taxes on gasoline, or cars that consume it would provide alternative fuels a competitive advantage, I would have to say yes. However the effects of such actions to the overall economy and political climate will prevent such action from taking place unless there is an event that changes the paradigm of the general population.

 

I wonder if some of the alternative fuels research hasn't suffered because the funding was held back to avoid irking the petroleum industry...

 

Heard about this?

I am worried, because: last year me and my girfriend almost went to a trip to Oceania, fortunatelly we didn't, the tsunami would kill us; a month ago the plane my sister in law took was lifted 20 metres on the air by a kind of typhoon and droped suddenly causing lots injuries to people, those kind of typhoons never happened before; 4 days ago a hurricane born in the area that born Katrina and others came to Portugal - Spain, never before a hurricane came this way, they always go to down-USA, thanksfuly it became a tropical storm upon touchdown south Spain, so we have rain for 4 straight days; cities around Barcelona and under the Pirineos are suffering floods, 3 cars and 6 people were dragged suddenly by water in a city street killing 10 people, just 20 km from where I live; do you remember New Orleands viewed from the air after the flood?, we have 6 cities here like that, streets like Venecia, people dragged at night by current water with their own houses; former Barcelona coach, friend of us, went to a trip to Japan, he was in one of the worst earthquakes there, thanks that Japan is one of the most prepared countries against earthquakes; of course I am worried, cold is colder as usual in these days, by october never snowed before, this year those cities had 1 mt of snow.
Of course I am worried, I might be in a place where it supposed to be safe, sleepeing, but get dragged by a flood, where yesterday was dry, like happened to 12 people in the last 2 days.

 

That article is sad and discouraging , poor polar bears.

I suggest everyone read it, for that is proof that we are slowly destroying the climate.

 

Alrighty, sorry, i guess it might not have been a justified statement, I just thought that when they mentioned increased CO2 and greenhouse gases, they meant that it was the fault of humans.

But still, it is unfortunate.

 

Ok, the pollution effects of mankind, all told so far, are so minimal compared to the Earth that they only make an impact on the local scale, see Mexico City. The global environment, not only can take vastly larger amounts than what we put in, but has mechanisms to recover faster than we are putting it in, especially the ocean. You know those bacteria that break up toxic waste into non-toxic compounds, we got most of them from oceanic vents.
The earth cycles and processes more water every year than humanity could ever use. There is not enough room on the surface of the earth for that many humans.
The global climate has only been measured to any great extent for the past few decades, not nearly enough to make long term projections off of.
How do we know what temperatures the arctic experienced 400 years ago? Ice is not good for tracking temperature changes over long periods of time and the melting that occurs every summer corrupts the temerature data for any surviving ice. Many of these sites/claims use data from the past 20 years and extrapolate. We now know that the earth goes through a ~50 year temperature cycle of rise and fall. We are nearing the end of a rise, so global temperatures should start falling in the next 10 or so years. There are probably many other, longer cycles that the earth's environment goes through, but we don't have enough accurate data to predict them yet.
Finally, the processes that influence the earth's temperature are increadibly complex. You have the average and specific reflectivity of the surface, the reflectivity and commonality of clouds, the rate that the atmosphere retains heat, the rate that the Sun puts it out, the rate that the earth looses heat, and many others. Most of these are either directly or indirectly dependant on the current temperature of the earth. The only reliable way to significantly change the earth's temp is to change it's distance from the Sun, or change how much the Sun puts out. Both of these are beyond our capabilities at this point.

 

many of these catastrophies are a necessity of nature, a hurricane is made to bring heat from one place to another. so it is a necessity of nature to do these things, more oftenly because of polution global warming and so on...

 

It's amazing how people can know so much aboutaone thing and not so much about another. Balle is absolutely right that hurricanes bring heat, among other things, from one place to another, and that this is part of a natural cycle, one of many that serve this purpose. She? is, however, wrong about the polution issue, or at least as far as we know. There is no evidence to even suggest that polution may contribute to hurricanes. Quite the reverse, actually. The leading eco-biased theory is that polution causes local heat to rise. This, then, would mean that North America should have more heat than usual, and a larger increase than the African coast, so the number of hurricanes would decrease, or, at least, they would be less likely to hit us. Also, the greatest change would have been seen in the 80's and 90's, not now. The More You Know...

 

you're wrong about the she, in fact you could'nt be any more wrong about that.

i just surfed a bit on the internet the other day, as i do everyday, and saw something about hurrcanes moving heat, and i just assumed that Heat=hurricanes and pollution=holes in the ozon layer=heat, so hurricanes would hit to extract the heat from the given place, but i guess i was wrong.

 

Still, global warming or no, I think 3 of the last 5 years are the hottest overall since we've started to measure temperature worldwide. It might be part of a natural cycle or global warming - we should be careful either way.

 

Actually, there were a few in the 40's and 50's that were hotter, but not by much.

Balli: thanks for the clarification, it was just a guess. Internet sources can be good, but don't trust everything you see. I haven't seen the pollution=holes thing in years, mainly because the largest 'hole' actually only a minor thinning in the ozone, is over antarctica and there's no pollution in antarctica. The evidence suggests that, while certain chemicals do destroy ozone, it is regenerated plenty fast, and we've stopped using the vast majority of those chemicals. If you're really curious about the latest, look for college and university sites, as well as NASA or NOAA. These are the people doing the latest research. Also be wary of anyone that's wholely one-sided. They haven't neccessarily biased their data, but they may well have.

 

I think there are two separate issues here to consider. The answer to the question of "Is the current temperature seen around the planet generally warmer now that it has been in recent memory?" is unequivocally yes. In fact, 2005 is shaping up to be the hottest year ever recorded. The way they rate global temperatures is they take temperature readings at diverse sites (I think something like 600-something) from around the world and average them. Based on data calculated from 30 September - the latest available info - no year has been hotter than 2005 up through this point.

There is a second question though, to which we don't have an answer. That question would be: "Are these changes largely influenced by human actions?" We simply don't know. We don't know if pollution, global warming, etc., is a man-made crisis or a normal change in climate. "Global Warming" is a fact if you only mean the earth is warmer today than it used to be. However, if you define "Global Warming" as a CO2-driven event caused predominantly by burning excessive amounts of fossil fuels, well the jury is still out.

 

I for one was surprised to learn that we are presently living in an ice age. Who would have thought. The polar caps are covered in ice; according to scientific definition that qualifies our present as ice age. Puts the global warming in a different light for me.

That doesnt mean I am advocating squandering our resources or poisoning our world.

 

How do you define recent memory? Our records for most of the world for any more than a few dozen years ago are spotty at best, but in the few areas that we have good, long, reliable records we see that this year is only the 3rd hottest at best and doesn't even make top 10 in some areas. All in all, the jury is still out. Though don't be confused, I love fuel cells and completely support their development as a replacement for hydrocarbons, which is needed due to the local effects alone.

 

Well, the jury is still out if you ignore the majority of scientific evidence (can this prove without a doubt that recent warming is due to CO2? No. However, there is compelling evidence)

Or, alternately, if you give the same weight to oil-company sponsored think-tank propaganda as to reputable science studies.

 

Actually, the reputable scientific evidence suggests that human activity has not made a serious impact on the global environment. The major players in this arena are seismic and volcanic events, gas and hot springs, and plankton in the ocean.
Human CO2 pollusion, deforestation, and slash-and-burn tactics add up to little more than a guppy in the ocean.