The Environment - Is It Too Late?

Most sane people within the scientific community have come to accept that global warming is actually happening. Some, like the author of Gaia, have even gone as far as saying that it's too late to do anything about it, that we've already had an irreversible impact on the planet. The of course there are the myriad other problems that we have created for ourselves. What do you think? Is there a way to save the world? Is it new technology, or is it a reversion to a simpler way of life? And if there is a future for this planet, does it involve us?

 

It isn't just James Lovelock (leading founder of the Gaia theory) who thinks this world is beyond repair, various leading climatologists and even some environmental organisations have admitted that it just may be too late to stop this world being destroyed by climate change.

Unfortunately for the environmental conservation organisations they have to make out that there is things people can do, not just for hope, but for the subscriptions that keep them in business and their workers paid.

Maybe if we did completely STOP all emissions today, went completely fossil fuel free and used wind, solar and wave energy sources, heck even use *dreads to say it* NUCLEAR ENERGY then perhaps we may only just start to rewind what impacts we have inflicted on mother earth. The chances of this are nil basically when us humans as a society don't have the infrastructure or daring to change a way of life so rapidly, something which is ingrained so deeply in history and our predictions of the future.

I am not a pessimist or even a "end of the world is nigh" kinda guy, i just think that maybe there is nothing we can do but enjoy the last 100yrs of civilisation we have left.

On a plus note we will all get detroyed by a nuclear war anyway soon i expect.

 

Al Gore, bless his little cotton socks, was on More4 the other night. He was saying that there is a window of about ten years in which we can take action before we risk reaching the "tipping point". I think it's fairly common idea that there will be a point where the changes we have caused will kick off an unstoppable chain reaction of events. The main sign of this will be the total meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet. Once this happens it will be ireversible (for a very long time anyway) and will speed up climate change exponentially, so we're basically fucked.

I need to read more to discover what the current thinking is on the window that may still remain during which we can effect change and (possibly) prevent this outcome. Anyone point me in the right direction?

As recyclable says, the nuclear option, however unpalatable, may well be the only way we can reverse things in the medium term. That's what James Lovelock reckons and I have a feeling he may be right...

 

I'm not against using nuclear power as such, it is relatively safe - a lot safer than the days of Chernobyl. But the trouble is, it would only be a short term measure. Uranium is a finite resource. And the problem of waste is still a big concern. We would just be storing up problems for ourselves in the future. Nuclear fusion is an encouraging technology, but that's decades in the future. We need to act now. And power might be the least of our worries compared to cars. I think we may need some strong government measures to restrict the use of gas guzzlers, or perhaps even of owning more than one car. People can cry individual liberty, but freedom, I would say, is not the most important condition of human life....

 

If you believe the likes of Lovelock, and the newish findings about the effects of small scale nuclear contamination from the studies of Chernobyl, then nuclear waste poses a much lower risk than was previously thought. I won't go into it, but all the thoeries about nuclear contamination were based on data from the massive radiation released in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There was no data on small scale exposure until Chernobyl. and it appears that it is less harmful than was thought. In which case nuclear waste could be contained pretty safely, and even nuclear accidents - while still a huge risk - do not pose a devastating risk. Such accidents may be more in line with the risk of accidents from fuel oil explosions and rig fires, etc.

Nuclear fission is not a longterm solution. But we need to act now, and in the short to medium term there is arguably no viable alternative. Renewables currently cover less than 10% of all energy needs, this will rise to a maximum of maybe 20-30%. The current technology just isn't good enough. Power consumption will continue to rise, and even if we can slow down the increase, reducing it by 80% is just not viable without a total restructuring of society. This could not happen in time.

Along with this we need to encourage far more efficient transport, get people out of their cars, raise taxes to stop cheap fares on short-haul flights. Make cars more efficient by using hybrid or electric power. Efficiency savings and renewable power will help, but they will not be enough to halt global warming if the figures really are as drastic as most scientists now believe.

 

I had heard about the evidence emerging from Chernobyl, it's interesting stuff. Still, you can never be too safe when it comes to nuclear fission.


Alas, it may be time to get draconian on the environmental issues. If it's now or never, people are going to have to step in line. And as unfair as it may be to take cheap holidays away from families who might never have left the country a generation ago, it's got to be done. Cheap flights are killing the planet, they've got to stop....

 

Here are a couple of things from the news today:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/art...C_0_UK-ENVIRONMENT-BRITAIN.xml&archived=False

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5354506.stm

 

Makes interesting reading Shirley thanks. I don't trust the Lib Dems particularly, probably the least of the three main parties simply because of the piggy in the middle position they find themselves in when targetting seats. Still, a solid environmental policy is important, and I'm glad that it has become such an issue of mainstream concern. As an aside, dropping their policy on 50% upperband tax, just after plucking it out of a hat to win some seats from Labour, before turning right again to target Tory seats, is a very suspect policy indeed.

By the way, I don't think I had the chance to welcome you properly to the UK Forum, Shirley. It's a great little community we have here, I hope you enjoy posting with us

 

my prediction is that the warming of the earth will also warm the core... this increase in pressure will result in the errupting of most, if not all of the volcanoes.. including yellowstone park. this will flood the atmospere with ash for a number of years.. which will unfortunately kill most of the inhabitants of the planet.. but it will also block out the suns rays for long enough for the ice caps to reform... and when the ash goes away a new world with less people and less bullshit will immerge...

well maybe.. its a nicer way to say.. "pack your bags.. i think we're fucked."

and have a nice day.

 

How will the warming of the Earth warm the core?

 

i dont know.. it was a prediction with no basis on scientific evidence... if there is one thing i have learned from recent world events it's that you dont need evidence if you have conviction in your ignorance.
but; as the earth and oceans warm up then it is like puting a blanket on a boiler.. the insulation will result in extra heating and more pressure being created in the magma flows. (maybe)

so yes.. balls to evidence and science.. if ignorance is good enough for world leaders it's good enough for me.

 

I'd say the science is almost 100% against you, but since your reasoning by comparison was so good I'll let you off

 

well you may say that science is against me... but if you look at from a reductionalist science viewpoint, the pgysics makes sence... every theory starts as a hypothesis and then it is research and experimentation that prooves it.
and i say that the increase in temperature will increase the temperature of everythinig.. not just the air or sea. and so as the isulation of the earth continues then surely the result is an increase of temperature across the field... there fore as previously hypothesised. the added pressure of increased gasses from magma flows will cause more volcanoes to erupt more readily...

that sounds like sound science to me.

just because some phd in science hasn;t said it yet doesn't make it any less plausible.

if you can find evidence to suggest this is wrong then thats fine.. and i will revoke my prediction... but critisisms must be justified.

 

The Earth's core is already pretty well insulated, to the extent that a difference of just a few degrees at the Earth's surface - which is enough to kill large amounts of life, change habitats, melt ice caps, or to plunge the world into an ice age - won't make much difference to the molten rock in the Earth's core which is already at a temperature of thousands of degrees C.

The thing stopping volcanoes from erupting more readily is not that the molten rock is not hot enough to burst out of its own accord already, but that it is subjected to so much pressurised containment by the Earth's crust. Fissures in the Earth's crust cause volcanoes to burst out, a few degrees difference in the temperature of the molten lava won't make much difference to the rate at which this happens...

Most heating of the surface and atmosphere of the Earth is done by the sun, the core doesn't add much heat to surface temperatures because of the thick crust of rock which holds it in. The same is true the other way; though there is a heat gradient acting from the centre to the surface so it's very unlikely a hotter surface could heat the core any further anyway. Something which is cold can't heat something which is already hot, and the amount of heat lost from the core into the atmosphere is negligible so any insulating effect would also be tiny

 

ok fair enough everydays a school day

 

but....
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/...bal-warming-earthquakes-ad-volcanic-activity/

lies all lies i tell you

 

We'll be okay.

 

Exactly what I was going to say. Smartie, you're right, the point of science is to make hypotheses and test them to falsify those that are inaccurate. Obviously we're not going to be able to test this one, so we have to deal in probabilities, and I'd say the prediction that Jon has presented, given all available evidence on heat transfer and pressure, is much more likely.

 

well maybe the vocanic activity will not be due to a raise in core temerature.. but (if my link is to be believed) global warming will produce more volcanic activity... so i get to be half right... the result is the same just the route is different.

 

You're just determined to die by volcano aren't you?