Why it's too late to stop global warming

Whitestar

I read an article on global warming stating that it is way too late to stop global warming, too late by far. Here is the link:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGP4B7GC91.DTL

Despite the fact that I consider myself to be an eternal optimist, I personally think it's way too late to stop global warming. Nonetheless, we can at the very least reduce it by carpooling, recycling waste, and planting trees. While all this good and fine, it still will not stop or reverse it. Therefore, I think it's equally important to reinvest in the space program because we will reach a point where the Earth will become as hot as Venus, there will at least be a 10 to 20 degree raise before it levels off. We will see island nations like Japan and England literally dissappear under the waves, most likely what will be left will be the major mountain region which will become islands. Places like planes and coast will be gone, almost 80% of present land mass. I would imagine that those who wish to remain on Earth will eventually have to use genetic engineering and gene therapy, thereby speeding up their evolutionary process and eventually evolving into a new species. They will be tall and thin in order to adapt to high temperature and permit better cooling. Plus they would have larger lung capacity due to less oxygen and would perhaps make them capable of surviving in water for long periods of time.


Thoughts anyone?

Whitestar

dav2008

My thought is that you improperly copied the article URL.

Pengwuino

Uhm... most of what you said sounds insane. I mean Venus is around 700K... 80% of the present land mass going under is absurd... we'll most likely be hit by a celestrial object that whipes out mankind because that kind of thing happens. Also, Earth is pretty difficult to control but it's more likely that we'll able to conduct terraforming and atmospheric manipulation before we're able to force evolution on ourselves.

Your link also doesn't work.

On the subject, most scientists agree that it is infact, still reversable to a point and that carpooling and recycling isn't going to do the trick.

Whitestar

Okay, I found the proper link, just click above.

Whitestar

Pengwuino

WHOA this article is old....

I gotta say... i saw "San Francisco" and i thought this would be a apocolyptic sensationalized view of global warming by someone who over-reacted. Ironically enough, i think you are the one who is over-reacting over this article. Although I have some objections to the heatwave incident and the california mudslide thing, the article is pretty level-headed and actually talks about the preperations, technical problems, and a few other things most global warming articles never seem to care about.

Whitestar

Well, I may be over-reacting but this is a very serious issue, one that must be dealt with accordingly. Even if we stop burning fossil fuel and take part in cleaning up our enivironment, the CO2 emissions will still be in the Earth's atmosphere for at least 100,000 years from now. Plus, scientists are now saying that methane could be far worse than carbon dioxide. Check out this link:

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp...on_dioxide.htm

Whitestar

Amp1

It was probably too late five or ten years ago. What many scientists are waiting for now is a threshold to be met then exceeded which may spell trouble for the human race. GW could drastically increase. When I heard that last week they were issuing tornado warnings in Cali I started thing about the film 'the day after' I don't imagine things will get that bad that fast butr I don't really know what will happen.

Mk

Scientists have been saying methane is "far worse" than carbon dioxide. Just know you have heard of it. Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas that contributes to the effect. Water vapour is the largest contributer to the greenhouse effect.

The concentrations of several greenhouse gases have increased over time {1} due to human activities, such as carbon dioxide, and methane, but climatologists are still not sure how strongly the raise in concentration affects the Earth's climate.

Andre

http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/foru...sts=53&start=1

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread....18#post1026418

quantumcarl

Change is the only constant in this universe, home-dawg.

But, I remain convinced that Global Warming is a North American myopic description of what is actually "Regional Warming".

Here's a quote from a report on Antartica's dramatic rise in temperature and how it could result in a 57 meter rise in sea levels.eek

Read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4857832.stm

Mk

The ftp://ftp.giss.nasa.gov/outgoing/JEH...r20062_all.pdf link doesn't work anymore, there is no bams_29mar20062_all.pdf file in the JEH folder. Do you have a copy at a different location?

Arian

The article is interesting but you forget that if it does level off at 10 or 20 more degrees it won't reach the hundreds in degrees. Second, realize that it is more then easy to stop GW. All you have to do it build a giant "carbon killer." It would simply react CO2 into something else.

Mk

Messing with the environment is like going back in time and messing around—you don't know what the complications will be with the future. Things will change, for better or for worse on all scales. For better or for worse for different things.

If you could significantly alter the Earth's climate, well, its not a thing to go experimenting about with.

Saker

Well, that may be true, but you shouldn't forget that just as you need a huge amount of CO2 to warm up the climate a few degrees, you're going to have to take out the same amount to reverse it. If I'm not mistaken, we've already released about 100 billion tons of it into the atmosphere, making the average temperature about .6 °C higher. If you were to reverse what we did with a chemical reaction, you'll need around the same mass of another reactant to use it up. Take for instance, the chemical reaction used to take CO2 out of the air inside of spaceships:

2LiOH + CO2 ----> Li2CO3 + H2O

If you know a bit of stoichiometry, you'll see that to use up the 100 billion tons, you'll need about 109 billion tons of lithium hydroxide. I don't think that there is that much of it on the Earth.

dand5

You shouldn't forget that there are some pretty potent sinks for co2:
1) oceans
2) soils
3) plants/biosphere - which tend to increase uptake as the concentration increases

Saker

Yes, that's true too. I think we underestimate our planet's capability to minimize changes and the adaptability of life. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care about what's happening, but its good to know that all we have to do is give the Earth a little help

PaulD

I missed this thread ! One mustn't forget there are two vastly different opinions on GW a) that it is man made and b) that it is part of the historical cycle that has gone on over the evolution of the earth. You will find references to both sides abound and they tend to be rather polar. i am one of the few who sit on the fence here and believe that there is data to support global warming but insufficient data to prove the cause !
This forum has already been posted by Andre http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/foru...iew.asp?fid=30
but if you are interested and sift through the threads you will find fairly convincing arguements from both sides.
BUT I do beleive that we should be taking steps to assume that it maybe AGW....it's too big a gamble not too.
Regards
Paul D