"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>
> However, leaving aside the oil debate for a minute, I'll simply point
> out that the current consumption of fossil fuels *AND* the beaming
> the energy to the Earth from the moon do not appear to me to be
> "recommended" solutions. Why? Because you are messing up the
> ecological balance of the planet. We know we could potentially
> have on a habitable planet with the CO2 levels in the atmosphere
> several centuries ago (at least on multi-100-thousand year timescales).
> We *don't* know if we have a planet which is habitable for the long
> term with the current CO2 atmospheric levels *or* in a situation
> where the Earth is receiving (and having to *radiate*) significantly
> more energy than it currently absorbs from the sun [which is what
> happens if you collect the energy on the moon and beam it to Earth].
>
> So *unless* your energy plans include sprinkling white styrofoam
> beads over much of the ocean's surface area or building cooling
> towers into the stratosphere, I think you should consider that
> a fossil fuel based energy supply and off-planet harvested energy
> are really *bad* ideas.
Actually, I do support seeding the oceans with iron and potassium to aid
in plankton growth to help compensate for the damage caused by ozone
depletion. I have seen some models that show that most of the increase
in atmospheric CO2 (and the temperature rise of the past 30 years) can
be explained almost entirely by the decrease in oceanic plankton
populations caused by ozone hole related UV radiation. Of course, once
the ozone hole goes away as CFC levels drop back to normal, the need for
this should end.
My cousin's work that I've occasionally talked about here is supposed to
be published some time early 2002, the conclusions of which imply that
the earth can withstand a global temp increase of a minimum of 6-9
degrees C without any impact on the Antarctic Ice Cap, and that the
claims of the cataclysmists are wrong, so all we really need to worry
about is the Greenland Ice Cap.
Supporting evidence for this conclusion I found my freind George Ashton,
former director of the US Army CoE Cold Regions Research Laboratory,
says that the papers he's been reviewing show that the evidence the
cataclysmists base their claims on, which is that ice flow rates on the
smaller Antarctic Ice Sheet (as well as Greenland) have increased, has
left out the fact that this speedup is due to the warming period that
followed the Little Ice Age, because the speed at which atmospheric temp
changes are transmitted through several miles of ice is rather slow,
such that the warming that lubricates the current speedup occured
hundreds of years ago.
> And before you start suggesting "engineered"
> solutions (yea, I know you guys like to do this, just like me)
> you better ask yourselves *how* good your computer models are and
> what the limits are on climate predictability due to chaos effects?
I guess it depends on where the equilibrium states are, eh? Those on the
cataclysmic side claim that every incident of odd weather is due to the
chaotic 'thrashing' effect of a climate changing from one equilibrium
state to another. If our previous state is an equilibrium state, then
taking measures to return us to that state should act as negative
feedback, leading to greater stability.
The fact is that so long as Antarctica is separate from other
continents, such that the Circum-polar ocean current remains in force,
then the Antarctic Ice sheets will remain thermally isolated from the
rest of the world. This fact alone negates the claims of cataclysmists.
>
> I know some would say that in "bad" situations that economic conditions
> would change (e.g. if global warming gets really serious, we put a
> big tax on fossil fuels). But you run the risk of what happens
> if there are catastrophic triggers? If global warming is just
> enough to trigger the methane hydrates on the ocean floors to
> vaporize things could get very bad very quickly -- much quicker
> than economic adjustments could fix things.
But what evidence is there that this would happen? Hydrates are trapped
not because of temperature, but because of pressure. Increasing pressure
from melting glaciers raising ocean levels only makes hydrates more
secure, not less. You would need to significantly lower ocean levels in
order to trigger a hydrate release, something that only occurs during
ice ages.
>
> Its the catastrophic risks where our knowledge base is really poor, e.g.
> gamma ray bursts, asteroid impacts, methane hydrate stability, ocean
> current stability, etc. that you need to take into account when
> thinking about these situations before you promote various ideas.
> Remember -- we *are* on the Titanic its just a question of whether
> or not it sinks before we have the technology to plug the various
> holes in the hull and can prevent further icebergs from hitting us.
The fact is that the simulations that cataclysmists use ALWAYS
overestimate the amount of warming that should have already occured in
the past century by several degrees, they refuse to acknowledge the
ozone hole link to natural carbon sequestration, as well as other
things.
You are right to be concerned about adding more energy by beaming it
from the moon or from orbital platforms, as that does increase the
insolation rate, but there are means to compensate for this, which the
cataclysmists vehemently oppose not because of vague and unspecified
dangers, but because allowing oceanic plankton seeding would allow us to
greatly expand our energy usage via microwave beaming, which directly
conflicts with their luddite political agendas.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:28 MDT