Unprecedented Heat Wave Near North Pole (www.cbc.ca) 196
Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed quotes the CBC:
Weather watchers are focused on the world's most northerly community, which is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. "It's really quite spectacular," said David Phillips, Environment Canada's chief climatologist. "This is unprecedented." The weather agency confirmed that Canadian Forces Station Alert hit a record of 21 C [69.8 F] on Sunday. On Monday, the military listening post on the top of Ellesmere Island had reached 20 C [68 F] by noon and inched slightly higher later in the day.
A government report in April found that Canada was warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, and this new article points out that recently records have been beaten "not by fractions, but by large margins." For example, the Alert station's average temperature had been a cool 44.6 F, and Environment Canada's chief climatologist says a deviation of this magnitude is like the city of Toronto reaching a high of 107.6 F.
"It's nothing that you would have ever seen."
A government report in April found that Canada was warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, and this new article points out that recently records have been beaten "not by fractions, but by large margins." For example, the Alert station's average temperature had been a cool 44.6 F, and Environment Canada's chief climatologist says a deviation of this magnitude is like the city of Toronto reaching a high of 107.6 F.
"It's nothing that you would have ever seen."
The Great Filter (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, we're in it right now. This is why space is so devoid of coherent EM signals: all civilizations hit the Great Filter: fucked up their own planet before they could leave it. Now it's our turn.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
How do you prevent climate change?
Re:The Great Filter (Score:5, Interesting)
By believing it's an actual thing much sooner, resulting in funding alternate fuel and power sources decades sooner. Imagine if we'd invented reliable wind turbines a hundred years ago and actually used those, or if we had continued to develop safe nuclear power plants.
It might not have prevented climate change entirely, but it's very likely it would have slowed it down considerably.
Re:The Great Filter (Score:5, Insightful)
We couldn't have invented efficient electric generating wind turbines much before we did. What we could have done was put fewer stumbling blocks around their deployment, or even encouraged them. But solar is really more generally promising, and that's still being improved about as fast as we can.
What we really should have done/be doing is remove the subsidies to coal/oil/gas. And require that they pay for the pollution that they create. This would cause a substantial re-balancing of the economy in a desirable direction. Also we should have pushed the development of fission reactors that were able to use the "waste fuel rods" from the current generation of reactors as fuel. (Burying that stuff is a crime against humanity...we may need that energy.)
Saying we should have invented efficient wind turbines earlier is rather like saying "we should have invented efficient batteries earlier" after we invent an efficient battery. We're working as fast as we can, sorry but inventions don't come on a human schedule. (I'd say "they don't come on a schedule", but "steam-engine time" is a real thing. Three people tried to patent the telephone within the same month.)
Re: (Score:2)
Wind turbines were just what sprung to mind as I was typing, I wasn't trying to place them as the be-all end-all solution to global warming.
Re: (Score:2)
At the Nuclear Waste Management presentation I attended regarding "burying" spent fuel rods, the facility was a giant underground warehouse accessible by elevator. The rods were the size of a lipstick container encased in a coffin-sized container with multiple layers of shielding. Each rod would then be lifted on a regular forklift to sit on a shelf. I don't see a reason why they couldn't just be taken off the shelf and brought back up
Re: (Score:2)
OK. But some of the plans have called for burying them "so far underground they'll never see daylight again". (I think they were planning on using dry oil wells.)
I think it fortunate that some of the more extreme "solutions to nuclear waste" have never been implemented. That stuff is still a resource, and it's still got a lot of usable energy.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone needs to support a carbon tax.
And nuclear.
Reliable wind turbines a hundred years ago. (Score:2)
Imagine if we'd invented reliable wind turbines a hundred years ago and actually used those, or if we had continued to develop safe nuclear power plants.
We did - about a hundred seventy years ago.
They are called the "american multiblade" or "patent" windmills. They self-track the wind and self-regulate their operating speed (protecting themselves from high winds), which made them capable of running unattended except for annual maintenance (mostly adding oil). They're mostly used for pumping water.
They ena
Re: (Score:2)
This is rubbish, most wind turbines do not use permanent magnet generators. It is trending that way now, but mostly they have used a gearbox with a plain induction machine, or a DFIG, or an electrically excited induction machine. If anything allowed their development it wss the invention of high power switching devices like IGBTs for the power electronics.
You obviously didn't read down to the end of the post, where I made those very points.
Re: (Score:2)
or if we had continued to develop safe nuclear power plants.
There's a reason we haven't been doing that (the only real short term solution), and it sure isn't because of "deniers' or wascally wepubwicans.
Re: (Score:2)
Exxon put a lot of money into organizations like Greenpeace to sabotage nuclear. They weren't deniers, exactly the opposite, namely wascally wepubwians who were much more interested in short term profits then the well being of the population.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. There is no magical "collective" of humans that are going to fix your problems. It is up to YOU. So go out and do it. Greenhouse gas emissions have been rising year over year and so has fossil fuel usage. There is no will to make change. We are too comfortable.
Re: (Score:2)
No, "we" (as in "each of us") don't know any better and won't know any better. Average Joe doesn't give a shit about global warming, or pretty much anything outside of their immediate surroundings. It is how humans work, it is how pretty much any living creature works.
But "we" (as in "nations/tribes/groups") did have leaders, for as long as the species existed. Now, "they" (as in "leaders") should have done something, because, lo and behold, it was and is their job to take care of and lead "us" (as in "nati
Re: (Score:2)
You know who's going to be reaping the benefits of climate change most of all?
Russia.
They have so much frozen land that is going to become desirable real estate that it's not funny. And they're not fucking retarded virtual signaling morons like the entire Western world seems to be.
The next century is going to be VERY good for the Russian people.
Re: (Score:2)
The next century is going to be VERY good for the Russian people.
That's true so long as Europe keeps buying their natural gas.
Once Germany and France realizes that abandoning nuclear power wasn't such a great idea then Russia might find the flow of money coming in diminishing as the flow of oil and gas diminishes.
I'd like to see the math on how reliant Russia is on their oil and gas trade compared to other nations. I suspect they rely on it heavily, far more than any increase in cropland could make up for. If Russia is seeing more cropland, or land desirable for other
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not omitting anything.
Personally, I think that the Paleoceneâ"Eocene Thermal Maximum seems like a pretty nice time to be alive, and I am not interested in preventing global warming or climate change.
You're the one drinking the Kool-Aid and throwing shit at people like a monkey instead of engaging in an intelligent conversation.
Re:The Great Filter (Score:5, Insightful)
Some options are easier than others.
Re: (Score:2)
I was with you up until a point.
Decreased meat consumption.
Plants need animals to thrive. Allan Savory proved this with his experimentation.
https://www.ted.com/talks/alla... [ted.com]
There is nothing wrong with eating meat. That doesn't mean we need to eat more, but it also doesn't mean we need to eat less. We could probably turn the Sahara desert into grassland if we set out to do so. It would take a lot of cattle ranchers and sheep herders to make that happen.
Re: The Great Filter (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Eat less does not mean none.
Okay then, how much meat should we be eating?
I have no doubt that the answer will always be less than what we are eating now, regardless of how little a person is eating already.
If it's the industrial processes that bother you then I have a few ideas. Eat local. Getting food locally is already trendy. Raise your meat locally so it doesn't need to be shipped. Use more trains. Trains burn less fuel per mile, assuming they burn fuel at all because electric trains are a thing now. Don't clear the forests.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah. In a few years, we'll have artificial, vat grown meat that is indistinguishable from the slaughterhouse variety. Research is in full swing on that. When that happens, "eat less meat" will come off the list. But it would've helped over the last 20 years to have reduced in the meantime.
Re:The Great Filter (Score:5, Interesting)
I also tried to convince a lot of other people that it was important, by sharing the science and taking the time to post on boards like this one, writing legislators, etc., so that more people would take actions. Am I a saint? No. But I did work on the problem, and I made a difference. At the time, the math and modeling showed that a bunch of small actions would make a major difference. But a whole lot of people would rather not believe the science until it is way too late because it involves changing habits that we humans quite enjoy. Nonetheless, we still managed to get most of the world to accept the problem and start working on it, except for the USA, which is, ultimately, must be a really major part of the solution.
But I've largely given up in the last five years and moved on to planning for crop failures and major weather events. We're past the point where small collective actions will help, and the big action options seem even more unlikely to me.
Re: (Score:2)
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” Dale Carnegie
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That can be largely blamed on the religious nuts who are anti-birth control and anti-educating women.
Re: (Score:2)
Plus there is the whole pesky inverse-square-law thing, but I like your idea better.
Re: (Score:2)
The Drake equation solves this elegantly. of course, the range of results make it (so far) really unreliable, but as science progresses that range will tighten. Sadly, I think we're going to go extinct before that range is tight enough for us to know.
Useful reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, assuming that other parts of the universe are generally as dangerous as our neighborhood, the odds of a civilization surviving long enough to become space faring has to be pretty low. And that's not even counting the likelihood of local technology destroying themselves. On the other hand, there are lots of stars out there, so still a nonzero chance of someone pulling it off.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the "great filter" concept includes "the likelihood of local technology destroying themselves". But, yeah, it's still a guess of probabilities. And we *do* still have a chance to pull it off. I wouldn't want to guess at how good a chance, though. I figure that we have to do it within this century, or fail it, but the path to success is still not really clear.
By my figuring we need to have self-sufficient "colonies" in space to pull it off, but those are going to be social nightmares, so we probabl
Re: (Score:2)
See Drake equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Climate change does not threaten the human species (Score:2)
Humans -- preindustrial humans at that -- colonized every spec of land from Puerto Toro [goo.gl] at 55 degrees south to Quaanaaq [goo.gl] at 77 degrees north. They populated places as remote as the Siwa Oasis [goo.gl] and Mangreva Island [goo.gl].
We have tucked ourselves into literally every place in the world capable of growing plants or which has animals to hunt. Short of something like the Permian extinction, some of us seven billion are bound to get lucky.
That doesn't mean the planet will be capable of supporting billions of humans, or a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Score: +1, Depressing.
Wouldn't depressing be "-1"?
Not to a nihilist.
Climate change isn't slow and linear (Score:5, Interesting)
Positive feedback effects are kicking in and the earths climate is flipping to a new stable state. What that state will be, how long it will take and whether it'll just be bad news or god awful news for humans and most animals on this planet is anyones guess.
But as ever the climate change deniers will claim its
A) Nothing to see here there have always been extremes
B) Its natural, climate has changed in the past and its pure coincidence its changing rapidly now in line with human CO2 emmissions
C) Its a left wing conspiracy designed to extra taxes. Which of course explains why plenty of right of centre governments around the world also support doing something about climate change.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do you think it is "anyones guess"? There are models that predict it that include the positive feedback effects. Are you anti-science?
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair he said it was anyone's guess whether the end result would be "bad" or "really bad".
Re: (Score:2)
Umnh... the climate models have not been validated on areas beyond current experience. There have already been noticed feed-back relationships that none of the models had (previously) included, and to expect that there won't be more is foolish.
FWIW, the "great conveyor" has, indeed, showed signs of slowing. If it turns off, expect massive freezes in both the Eastern US and Europe as the rest of the world continues warming. ("The Day After Tomorrow" was Hollywood, not science, but the basic premise is cor
Re: (Score:2)
For instance, recently the KNMI (the Dutch national meteo institute) corrected a data series for the de Bilt weather station. The de Bilt series is significant because that's the one that defines national "heat waves" (5 days of temperatures of 25C, with at least 3 of those over 30C). The curious (from a climate change perspective) case is that there were more recorded heat waves (23) from 1901-1951, compared to 19 heat waves in
Re: (Score:2)
Positive feedback effects are kicking in and the earths climate is flipping to a new stable state. What that state will be, how long it will take and whether it'll just be bad news or god awful news for humans and most animals on this planet is anyones guess.
But as ever the climate change deniers will claim its A) Nothing to see here there have always been extremes B) Its natural, climate has changed in the past and its pure coincidence its changing rapidly now in line with human CO2 emmissions C) Its a left wing conspiracy designed to extra taxes. Which of course explains why plenty of right of centre governments around the world also support doing something about climate change.
Yeah, well, it seems that ranting like that isn't getting the job done. It's great for feeling superior, not so great for problem solving.
How about we find some technological solutions? And in the short term, go full nuclear?
Re: (Score:3)
"What's been pointed out is that we can't even accurately model the weather three days from today, let alone a week, so why should we pretend these same models work on the scale of years?"
Ah, the scale fallacy favoured by assclowns everywhere.
Guess what - you can't accurately predict where individual bubbles will appear in a pot of boiling water but you can predict with 100% certainty that it will boil given enough heat.
Re: (Score:3)
But the main point stands: do you have a proposed solution that is not destroying modern society?
Yeah, we simply wait until we run out of fossil fuels.
Re:Climate change isn't slow and linear (Score:5, Informative)
this generic assumption that we're going to trap more of it, using poorly explained magical climate models.
The heat-trapping effect of CO2 has nothing to do with climate models. It's based on the easily observed physical property of CO2 to absorb infrared radiation.
This effect can be shown clearly in this simple experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You're wasting your breath. Most of these morons can barely spell "science", never mind having had an education in it at school.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a link to a video too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Dr. Patrick Moore thinks we need to clean up some oil spills. The natural oil spills. If we get that oil out of the sand then we can turn it into places for trees and ducks.
Dr. Moore likes hydro power, Greenpeace does not. Hydroelectric dams are great for producing electricity 24/7, they manage drought and floods, they provide water for irrigation and drinking, and create space for wildlife and recreation.
Dr. Moore had to leave Greenpeace beca
Re: (Score:2)
Despite its simplicity, it accurately demonstrated the absorption of IR radiation by CO2. That was its sole purpose, and it succeeded perfectly.
Did it demonstrate that? I believe it just demonstrated that CO2 released from a high pressure tank is very cold.
Had I remembered seeing an experiment like this before I would have posted the link. With my memory refreshed I found the article showing experiments like this as dubious.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/go... [wattsupwiththat.com]
Noted in the article is the cooling effect of adding CO2 from a pressurized tank. The video you gave didn't take into account the temperature of the gas added.
The CO2 trapping heat is not disp
Re: (Score:2)
Refrigerator Sellers Opportunity Alert! (Score:2)
Yes! You can sell refrigerators to Eskimos!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, they're having to put in underground refrigeration to keep the permafrost frozen around the foundations of their homes.
Arctic vacation time! (Score:3)
I look forward to vacationing in the Arctic summers. Russian oligarchs are probably already trying to figure out if they can South China Sea that shit with some private islands.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia has already been extending it's claims over islands in the Arctic Ocean. But if they want to build one at the pole, they'll need to import a lot of rocks, as that's well under water.
Re: (Score:2)
Oligarch. Would you care to define that word?
Here you go you lazy git: http://www.letmewikipediathatf... [letmewikip...foryou.com]
observation vs concept (Score:2)
"Unprecedented heat wave" (Score:4, Informative)
A few dead factual and neutrally sourced observations -- flame away:
1. The current temperature in Alert, Nunavut is 3 C, heading for a high of 4 [theweathernetwork.com].
2. The forecast for the rest of the week [theweathernetwork.com] is 9, 10, 5, 4, 4, and 5 C (TFA says the average July high is 7 C).
3. The above link also shows the warm snap lasted less than 4 days, bounded by a high of 12 C on the 13th and 5 C on the 18th.
4. Alert recorded a high of 20 C in 1956 [strangesounds.org].
Given that, words like "spectacular" and "unprecedented" seem a bit overwrought.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably about tripled that far north. So that high of 21C on the 16th of this month, breaking the 1956 record of 20C, needs to be understood in context. If the average monthly high is 7C, and last week hit 14C higher than that, global warming is probably only responsible for 3C of that 14C
But as the world record for a temperature measured so close to the pole.
Which is "unprecedented" by definition.
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably about tripled that far north. . . If the average monthly high is 7C, and last week hit 14C higher than that, global warming is probably only responsible for 3C of that 14C
I think the links to your sources must have been stripped by some sort of weird new /. filter. Would you mind reposting?
Re: (Score:2)
The attached article is clearly marked as being from July 15. No sooner, no later. Your 4 points are overwrought, and thus not worthy of the upvotes they received. Stick to facts.
Re: (Score:2)
The attached article is clearly marked as being from July 15. No sooner, no later.
And the chart in my second link clearly shows 21 C on July 14. It's not clear what particularly clever point you thought you were making.
The solution is to (Score:3)
burn more coal, much more! We have to darken the skies so the smoke will block the sun and allow the earth to cool off a bit.
#MAGA!
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the standard line was that temperatures have been stable since 1998. Why are you now changing that date to 2015 ?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They pretty much were [woodfortrees.org], until we had a big El Nino event. But they are trending back down after that big 2016 spike [woodfortrees.org]. We will probably see a long-term 0.1 deg C increase from 2002 to ~2022 - about 0.05 deg C per decade, or 0.5 deg C per century.
The data says it was stable, and that it's heading back down after the big El Nino, close to where it was before the 2016 event. But that is so slow - and low - that it doesn't foster a sense of panic, so somehow this must be ignored and challenged.
When data and
Re: (Score:2)
Why is there such a big discrepency between RSS and UAH models ?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/r... [woodfortrees.org]
Re:Great, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
When you edit your data so much - what can you say about models trying to predict what will happen?
Impossible to say anything useful, just looking at two graphs. What you need to show is: a) the reason that NASA gives for the adjustment, and b) explain why that particular reason for the adjustment is bad. Just saying that any random adjustment is wrong, is terribly shortsighted and utterly unconvincing.
Re: (Score:2)
Fudged data gives fudged results - and UAH has the least amount of fudging going on - mainly because the team working on it hold to the scientific principle of data being the source, not the end.
Unless, of course, the data should be fudged, because the satellite measurements have drifted (due to orbital decay for instance). I trust that you are aware that satellites don't actually directly measure the temperature. Instead they use a complicated model to derive the temperature, and that there are a number of different reasons that the model needs to be adjusted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well...here where I am in Oregon, the years been unseasonably warm. A few record breaking days. And the models predict that the effects will be larger the further you are away from the equator.
You might also look at the weather reports for Toronto and Europe. So, yes, globally warmer. This doesn't imply warmer in every location. (P.S.: you might also want to look at Antarctic ice sheet movements. There was a point about a month ago when some people were saying that it was cooling off again, but that'
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe not. Weather is highly variable from locale to locale, and I don't know what the weather has been like either on the coast, or near the Idaho border. So parts of Oregon could have had a moderate year...but I don't live in one of those parts.
Re: (Score:2)
Normally the west coast would be cold and wet right now because of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, but instead we've just had mild weather. That's bad news for when we get to the next upswing!
Re: (Score:2)
>And both RSS and UAH [woodfortrees.org] show global temperature continuing to drop since ~2015.
You meaning drop, then rise, then drop, then rise, then drop a little bit, then waaaay rise, then waaaay drop, then rise, then drop, then rise, then drop, then rise, then drop, then quite a bit rise, then quite a lot drop, then rise, then drop, then come out just a smidge lower than they started [woodfortrees.org], of course. Which (also of course), you would understand is only to be expected, since expecting a multi-decadal si
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
No they haven't. Funny how people keep pulling random data out of their ass
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Maybe if you round to the nearest order of magnitude..."
Yup, both slopes are steeply upwards.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's steep depends on perspective, and I assume that's how a lot of people see it in the context of climate.
I was reading slope as a "noun: slope; a surface of which one end or side is at a higher level than another; a rising or falling surface"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh - link right above, in the post you replied to? I guess a 13 year "stall/fall" in temperature no longer counts as a pause?
Not when it's based on bad statistical analysis, no.
Re: (Score:2)
we can expect that, on average, this is going to get lots worse over the next 10 to 30 years.
But what about Christmas, what about Santa?
Why does Donald Trump hate Christmas? Why does Mitch McConnell hate Santa Claus?
"You know what? I'm happy." -- Mitch McConnell
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Informative)
OK, let's dispense with the simple-minded positions here.
A *single* unusual event, or even a record-setting event, is indeed not proof of record setting climate change. However a *pattern* of such events happening *regularly is*.
In both the recent North American cold snaps, and the current North American heat wave, the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere *averaged over the whole hemisphere* was and is significantly warmer than usual. This frequent nonoccurence of warmer than average hemisphere-wide temperatures is like flipping a coin and get heads twenty or times in a row. That's the global heat trapping effect of CO2.
In the winter cold snaps solar radiation is at a minimum and the marginal contribution of CO2 is not enough to create discernible local warming. But it's also true that in the summer, CO2 isn't high enough to create local heating of the magnitude we're seeing.
That's caused by a vast high pressure air system inhibiting convection, along with high humidity which inhibits radiative cooling. However the *slight* warming effect (on the order of 2 degrees) on a global scale makes high pressure and high humidity *more likely*.
"Was this weather event cause by climate change?" is a broken question. It's meaningless. However the conditions which created this heat wave (and the recent winter cold snaps) are unquestionably more common in a world where the troposphere contains 415 ppm of CO2 than they would be in a world where that figure was 280 ppm.
Re: (Score:2)
"Was this weather event cause by climate change?" is a broken question. It's meaningless. However the conditions which created this heat wave (and the recent winter cold snaps) are unquestionably more common in a world where the troposphere contains 415 ppm of CO2 than they would be in a world where that figure was 280 ppm.
I accept your hypothesis. Now, what should we do about it?
Let's compare the energy sources available to us.
What's safe? Low in CO2 per energy produced? And uses the least raw materials per energy produced?
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
What are the costs of our options?
http://www.renewable-energysou... [renewable-...ources.com]
Given the information I'm seeing, if we can afford to build offshore wind, bio-fuels, and solar thermal, then we can afford to build some nuclear power plants. Use onshore wind where we can, use hydro wh
Re: (Score:2)
Who is going to pay for nukes? Every time nukes are talked about here, the right-wingers gain power, scream about taxes, rack up a big deficit then go nuts with austerity. They're not profitable enough for private industry and people don't want to pay higher taxes and have been convinced that the current historically low taxes are too high.
Re: (Score:3)
Who's going to pay for the nuclear power? Did you look at the table on the web page I linked to?
Here, I'll give the link again and copy the table from it.
http://www.renewable-energysou... [renewable-...ources.com]
Power Plant Type Cost (LCOE)
$/kW-hr
Coal with CCS $0.12-0.13
CC Natural Gas $0.043
CC with CCS $0.075
Nuclear $0.093
Wind onshore $0.037
Wind offshore $0.106
Solar PV $0.038
Solar Thermal $0.165
Geothermal $0.037
Biomass $0.092
Hydro $0.039
What's cheaper than coal? Everything. So any choice we make is better. But why are we burning coal if it is so expensive? Because it is stored energy. We need energy we can rely upon, and that means having a store of energy on hand to draw from at any time. This storage of energy has a cost all it's own.
Wind and sol
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear is 2.5 times more expensive then the hydro that is used here. The places with coal aren't interested in nuclear for the reasons that I listed as well as a refusal to believe there is a problem with coal or that natural gas is a quick cheap replacement.
Re: (Score:2)
...a refusal to believe there is a problem with coal or that natural gas is a quick cheap replacement.
Depending on who you ask for numbers the coal and natural gas will run out in 50 years, 500 years, or 5000 years. It's quite possible that we will find enough coal and natural gas to last until the sun strips the atmosphere from the planet. What is more likely is the costs of getting these fossil fuels will simply rise to the point that not using nuclear power would be economic suicide.
So, when will cheap fossil fuels run out? I believe this depends more on the decreasing costs of nuclear power than the
Re: (Score:2)
But melting ice, still a flood it creates. Yes, you silly billy, this is weather they are talking about and not climate. Climate sets the model for weather patterns and this particular weather pattern is very, very ice melting and that includes frozen dirt, permafrost, that ain't so perma any more and it will just help to make things that much more warmer and ice melty.
Want some bad news, something they people are only just starting to feel the impact of, BUG WARS, some really nasty ones, real you can not
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If temperatures keep increasing at this rate it will be over 1,000 degrees F in 5 years in Toronto. This is the end of days.
Read this: http://www.letmewikipediathatf... [letmewikip...foryou.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If you're talking about the variation I think you are, the Milankovitch cycles, then we're supposed to be entering an ice age.
Re: (Score:2)
Supposedly the earth orbit gets us slightly closer to the sun and our day getÃ(TM)s slightly longer. How or when will that impact global warming.
You're thinking of "orbital forcing" such as "Milankovitch Cycles" - periodic changes in Earth's orbital and rotational parameters that change the amount and distribution of sunlight received. Four big components are:
- Precession of the equinoxes. (The axis of the Earth's rotation points, not always to the north star, but f a follows a circle over te
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes. I think you were joking, but you're actually correct. What you ignored is the time scale. First the ice caps melt, as the oceans warm. Then the oceans keep warming, resulting in LOTS of water in the air (so, e.g., more violent storms). An indefinite period of time passes. SOMETHING causes the atmosphere too cool. Possibly a large meteor impact, possibly a chain of volcanoes erupting. at least once it appears the the meteor set off the volcanoes. This causes the atmosphere to start cooling.
wisdom does not come with age (Score:3)
You will DIE by Tiger if you don't do get out of it's cage ASAP.
Before you DIE, something happens thereby changing the data on which the projection was made. Such as, somebody shooting the Tiger. You say you were just fine in ignoring the projection.
It's a joke formula used in comedy. Often adding to it by the fool incorrectly taking credit for the positive outcome and that the fool's position was the better one.
Perhaps a time-traveling metaphor would help slow people grasp how any actions alter the future