Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

I am simply reflecting a personal view based on reading the IPCC reports and such like. Is it the easy line? going against the general consensus... I don't think so.

simply, that Man-Made CO2 is such a small percentage of the worlds CO2 let alone the Greenhouse gasses, I can't believe that it can affect the earths "biology" so much.

I don't believe that there is a gamble to be made.

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

:erm: The Millennium Bug was real, and it took a lot of time, effort, and money to stop it having any major effect (ask anyone who worked in IT at the time). We spent 15 months investigating, debugging, and replacing systems to minimise any issues.

---------- Post added at 22:29 ---------- Previous post was at 22:28 ----------

But what if you are wrong? Not really fair on the next generation to say "oops, sorry", is it?

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

Remember the front page of the NY Times on new years day 2000?
Headline of something like "Millenium Flop" and an article how it was all for nothing, the bug didn't exist etc, meanwhile the date was printed 01/01/19100 :D

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

I went to the Culham Laboratory on Oxfordshire last night. This is the place where they do research into nuclear fusion reactors, which are able to create endless supplies of electricity from water. Apparently there is enough fusion energy in a litre of water to keep one person in electricity for 7 years. That is the same as burning 147 tons of coal.

Maybe this is our saving technology.

And it's almost pollution free. The only pollutants include a very small amount of low level radioactive waste. The other by-products are lithium and helium.

Here is a link if you are interested:http://www.fusion.org.uk/

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

There is a mind-bogglingly vast amount of energy locked up inside every atom in the universe. The trick is to be able to release it in a controlled and useful way. The best minds on Earth have been trying to get nuclear fusion to work for decades now and they are at the stage where the technology is capable of sustaining a fusion reaction for (IIRC) half an hour or more. But it is still a long way from being commercially viable. The reaction requires a pretty huge energy kick to get it started so until a reaction can be sustained more or less indefinitely, we're not going to be getting our cheap, limitless energy from fusion.

It is telling that, throughout the entire ongoing climate debate, nobody is talking about fusion in the energy mix. And this is despite the fact that the world's leading economies are spending billions on a co-operative project to develop the technology. They all think it is worth pursuing, but it's not going to reap benefits for a very long time yet.

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

According to the people I spoke to last night, the possibility of a commercial fusion reactor as about 30 years away, which is getting a bit late for preventing climate change, so we will have to do other things first. However this is probably the long term solution.

By the way, the present record for a sustained plasma is about a minute. It doesn't have to be sustained indefinitely... it can be pulsed.

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

What so there's been an increase of ~38% since before the industrial revolution and you think that makes man made CO2 a "small percentage". Perhaps a maths class in in order. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_..._concentration

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4803460.stm

---------- Post added at 13:42 ---------- Previous post was at 13:33 ----------

Fusion's always been 30 years away - that's it's motto.

Personally I can't see why the government can't introduce some of the green taxes they're on about and ring fence the money and pump it into providing solar hot water panels, solar electricity panels and wind turbines for every house in the country over the next ten year. They could also provide insulation and work with the fuel companys further on developing renualbe sources of energy (i.e. ethanol fuel).

All this would cut our CO2 emissions immensely as well as show the public that the government are really worried about climate change and not just money making.

I can see additional benefits with this also as these things will need building, servicing and replacing - I think many thousands could be employed in this new industry.

Even if people don't believe in CC I think there's still a good argument for getting this country off it's dependency on gas and oil for a sustainable future should the things on the world stage take a further turn for the worse and we loose our imports.

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

Hello Shaun,

I completely agree with your last point. I don't think we should write off the fusion projects but we should definitely be looking at local generation of electricity and heat from renewable resources and the funding and strategic management of this large project has to lie with the government who can create the market.

We have to be sure that the system for local collection of energy is a low-carbon system though. Because of this I would like to know how much carbon is produced in the manufacture, installation, running and maintenance of a wind turbine, a photoelectric array and a solar panel. I am worried that it might actually be very carbon-high to do all this. I realise that the energy collection phase may be efficient but white vans will have to deliver this stuff, factories will have to manufacture them by the million and they will need to be maintained and disposed of at the end of their individual lives.

Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

By the way, here is a scan of the progress that has actually been made in the nuclear fusion world. Note that both of the scales are logarithmic. The point marked ITER is a point where 5:1 efficiency takes place (I am guessing that the scale along the bottom is efficiency and the vertical scale is in seconds). This chart comes from AERE Culham.

There has been an ongoing joke about the 30 year rule but it seems to me that there has been good progress and there is a sign that the obstacles are being overcome.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2007/03/18.jpg

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

A NASA scientist, chief of all climate and weather research programs within NASA and studied directly under Hansen, has become a sceptic. He also calls BS on some of Hansen's other claims.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01...climate_theon/

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

I think you can give pretty long odds on 3 and 4, but a meteor strike or a super volcanic eruption probably have a lot shorter odds, especially a super volcano.
I remember watching a program foretelling a 200 foot tidal wave travelling the Atlantic and decimating the East coast of America, all due to the super volcano on the island of La Palma.

http://www.rense.com/general13/tidal.htm

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

Lol, it might be even closer to home for the septics..

http://www.earthmountainview.com/yel...ellowstone.htm

:shocked:

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

Bring it on I say, about time we went the way of the dinosaurs!

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

What - disappear after 165 million years; sounds good to me - it means mankind have another 164 million years to go. ;)

If you mean becoming extinct, no thanks - life may not be truly idyllic, but it's better than the alternative (imho).

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

I wish it would hurry up and kick in. I'm freezing right now!

Re: Global warming 'past the point of no return'
 

They're saying we've to get snow before the weekend is over :(