I follow the money. Too much of it involved to believe much of anything. Do I believe in man made climate change? Not really, the evidence is not compelling, and the climatologists themselves even less so. Do I believe humanity is mucking up our environment? Absolutely. Most of Europe and CAN/USA already are doing quite a bit on that front. It's China-India-Brazil and the like that are the problem currently. Just not sure how much more the first world can do while it is continuously being undone by the third world.
General / Off-Topic Is man made climate change real or not? Prove your belief here.
- Thread starter Zak Gordon
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One of the very fascinating things (for me, anyway) is this knee-jerk reaction of environmentalists - planing a lot of trees. 
I guess it's not a common knowledge, but trees don't really help that much. They only contribute a relatively small amount to decreasing CO2.
Yes there are benefits to having trees in cities for example. They help with filtration and cooling down the air, but as far as climate change goes - they breathe in almost as much oxygen as they produce and although they build themselves out of CO2, it's laughably small amount compared to what we produce and it's a very inefficient way of storing it, anyway. We may as well start producing more plastics.
Trees don't CREATE oxygen. The amount of molecules we have at hand on this planet is relatively constant and oxygen circles between O2, CO2 and water (and other things of course). Planting a lot of trees doesn't change the balance of the states, it's only speeding up the circulation.
shruggs
I guess it's not a common knowledge, but trees don't really help that much. They only contribute a relatively small amount to decreasing CO2.
Yes there are benefits to having trees in cities for example. They help with filtration and cooling down the air, but as far as climate change goes - they breathe in almost as much oxygen as they produce and although they build themselves out of CO2, it's laughably small amount compared to what we produce and it's a very inefficient way of storing it, anyway. We may as well start producing more plastics.
Trees don't CREATE oxygen. The amount of molecules we have at hand on this planet is relatively constant and oxygen circles between O2, CO2 and water (and other things of course). Planting a lot of trees doesn't change the balance of the states, it's only speeding up the circulation.
shruggs
A large part of the joules escape into back space, thereby removing a lot of the entropy we create. Earth is a closed system. It doesn't exchange matter with space, but it does receive energy from the Sun, and it emits almost the same amount of energy back into space. When we add greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, water vapor etc.) into the atmosphere, some of that energy can't get out of the system, leading to an increase of the internal energy, and a higher temperature. When the temperature rises, that causes more heat to escape through the atmosphere, creating an new equilibrium, which is at a higher temperature.
If however, we reach certain levels other processes start coming into play. Like if the permafrost is melted, and the methane is released. That's a serious no go.
Plants do photosynthesis. Thereby they create sugars, and as a byproduct (molecular) oxygen. Oxygen is an element so the amount of oxygen on the planet is constant. Plants use some of that oxygen and the sugars they create to stay alive. Plants use respiration like the rest of us, to free the chemically bound energy in the sugars. The remaining sugars go into cellulose etc. which is long chains of sugar molecules. Overall the plants produce more oxygen than they use. If we don't eat them, after the plants die, they are mostly being "eaten" by fungi etc. which uses respiration and create CO2. It's all one big cycle, and it's that cycle that we're messing with.One of the very fascinating things (for me, anyway) is this knee-jerk reaction of environmentalists - planing a lot of trees.
I guess it's not a common knowledge, but trees don't really help that much. They only contribute a relatively small amount to decreasing CO2.
Yes there are benefits to having trees in cities for example. They help with filtration and cooling down the air, but as far as climate change goes - they breathe in almost as much oxygen as they produce and although they build themselves out of CO2, it's laughably small amount compared to what we produce and it's a very inefficient way of storing it, anyway. We may as well start producing more plastics.
Trees don't CREATE oxygen. The amount of molecules we have at hand on this planet is relatively constant and oxygen circles between O2, CO2 and water (and other things of course). Planting a lot of trees doesn't change the balance of the states, it's only speeding up the circulation.
shruggs
Planting a tree to compensate for the two that were cut down to facilitate ones trip to Thailand doesn't do it though. Especially if the planted tree is cut down to make room for producing biofuels. Plants not only "help a lot". Without them we wouldn't exist. It's as simple as that.
Earth loses absolutely huge but relatively small amounts of matter (mostly light elements like hydrogen and helium) to space, but that doesn't matter much for energy transport.
We also drastically change albedo by changing land use (although one could argue that through deforestation we may actually increase the amount of energy that gets reflected back into space), and by harnessing solar and wind power, we end up trapping energy as heat inside the atmosphere until it can get back out. At the relatively low temperature of only around 300K, radiation is not very effective.
During the day.
During the night, they use almost as much oxygen as they've produced during the day.
During the day.
During the night, they use almost as much oxygen as they've produced during the day.
Yes and asteroids etc. fall from the sky, but if you look at the amount of matter going in and out of the system, compared to the mass of the Earth, that exchange is negligible to a degree where it's fair to say that Earth is a closed (not isolated) system.
I'm not a climate scientist. I've been using Earth's energy balance in models concerning global food production. The climate models are far more complicated than mine. I even think the models made by the Club of Rome are too complicated, because we risk overlooking something, even though their models have been remarkably accurate. That is also a problem with climate models, but those models are getting better and better, and as mentioned in another thread, it rarely ends up showing that the previous models were too pessimistic.
I haven't been able to find any literature about what will happen to the energy we trap by extracting it from the solar energy. Have you? I would really like to know, because I honestly think it might be one of the factors nobody has thought about. The energy is normally sent back to the "heat sink" being space at a few deg K. The energy balance is almost constant, but before we invented using external energy, the only energy available to the biosphere all went through the autotrophs (mainly plants). That flow/balance is "delicate" when we look at how much external energy we use today compared to the energy running through the biosphere (disregarding reflected light etc.).
During the day.
During the night, they use almost as much oxygen as they've produced during the day.
That's the important caveat, they also prevent the erosion of the soil and are the basis of new ecosystems.
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It kind of comes down to the definition of "almost" and its consequences.During the day.
During the night, they use almost as much oxygen as they've produced during the day.
Do you not agree that plants are primary producers keeping almost every other organism (the heterotrophs) alive?
I'm glad we finally got that on record.
Not necessarily my views, just sharing some interesting video links about Global Warming / Climate change.
Dear Jason. You wrote something earlier about us environmentalists having an agenda. Could it be that I sit here trying to find anyone who can argue against the fact that it seems we're screwed?
This should be interesting.
Go to the Greta thread and read about Michelle Sterling and FoS. I'll make it easy:
General / Off-Topic - Hilarious counter to youth bemoaning the elder generations re climate change
brilliant movie (if one has to watch only one apocalyptic movie, let it be that one!). it still speculates on what would be the aftermath of a single global event that changes everything and leaves the world in shambles, though, and i don't think history will develop that way, there will not be...
forums.frontier.co.uk
Gotta love when self proclaimed experts (I'm talking about Marc Morano) have no background in the hard sciences.
No matter the development, there will always be a hard cap in the thermodinamic efficiency which is exactly the energy the oxidation gave off when the molecule was made, i.e., the energy you got by burning the fuel (which I think we can both agree is a rather high bottom).
One of the comments at YT to the Michelle Sterling video above states that, I quote:
"Facts be damned they see it as a foot in the door to totalitarian rule. "
Is that how some of you see it?
"Facts be damned they see it as a foot in the door to totalitarian rule. "
Is that how some of you see it?
This should be interesting, if true.
www.forbes.com
A Breakthrough In American Energy Dominance? U.S. Navy Patents Compact Fusion Reactor
President Donald Trump’s energy dominance narrative just got a boost from the United States Navy, which just patented a design for a compact fusion reactor (CFR)
www.forbes.com
"If true" is important, especially from "US Navy researcher Salvatore Cezar Pais, who received major publicity for patenting room-temperature superconductors and a suspiciously UFO-like aircraft that uses “anti-gravity” technology", none of which have seen the light of day yet. Sometimes you also take patents to rule out that anyone else can come up with the idea. You don't have to have a working prototype, just a concept on paper.This should be interesting, if true.
A Breakthrough In American Energy Dominance? U.S. Navy Patents Compact Fusion Reactor
President Donald Trump’s energy dominance narrative just got a boost from the United States Navy, which just patented a design for a compact fusion reactor (CFR)
But yes, if it is possible to make it work, the future would look so bright you had to wear shades
I absolutely see it as a foot in the door to totalitarian rule. There isn't a doubt in my mind.
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