Al Gore not exactly environment friendly...

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:42 pm

When I see discussions like this, one question comes to mind for the climate skeptics: what is the problem with making changes based on this data even in the unlikely event that the data (or analysis) is incorrect?

Excepting certain exotic and dubious proposals such as carbon sequestration, most of the proposed actions also provide other benefits. Efficiency is the reason Toyota is soon to become the world's largest carmaker, and has long been a goal in manufacturing aside from any ecological considerations. Decreasing emmisions from transportation improves air quality and can save literally millions of lives. Reducing household energy consumption can delay the need for expensive capital projects that also use up valuable land and other resources. The list goes on.

In short, the last half of the word ecological is logical: environmentalism provides its own justification, beyond what the flavour of the month happens to be. I'm personally happy to see global warming get such press, in part because I am convinced, but mostly because it gives a global voice to ecological concerns that have long had rational arguments on a local or regional scale.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:23 am

Not to mention reduced dependance on fossil fuels supplied by (repressive) Middle Eastern governments

mnkrause · Post by **mnkrause** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:33 pm

I'm all for reducing emissions into the atmosphere. Nitrous Oxides, Chlouroflourocarbons, Volatile Organic Componds, those do nasty things to our planet. They eat ozone, they cause acid rain. Carbon Dioxide hasn't made a Gigantic gain in our atmosphere like everyone assumes. Now if it went from being 0.275% in 1750 to suddently 2% or 3% or 5% Today, Holy Shit I'd be real worried. But its not some deadly toxic gas either. Plants breathe it, the Ocean absorbes it, it powers paintball and pellet guns.

I also agree we should be moving away from dinosaur juice. There's better, cleaner fuels coming. Ethanol is out there, its not great but its better. I'm hoping science can make more headway quickly on making Hydrogen a viable fuel.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:33 pm

Hydrogen is not a fuel, it is a battery. You have to make hydrogen from electricity, at least once we run out of natural gas, which is currently what most hydrogen is reformed from. Anyway, the process to convert electricity into hydrogen is horribly inefficient; something like 15% process efficiency from well to wheels versus 90% or something to just run an electric car from the grid.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:55 am

mnkrause wrote:Carbon Dioxide hasn't made a Gigantic gain in our atmosphere like everyone assumes. ... the Ocean absorbes it

Carbonic acid is CO2 in a water solution, and there are reports of this affecting ocean-living plants and animals, for examples corals who are dependant on quite a basic environment for creating their shells.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:34 am

Hello,

floffe wrote:
mnkrause wrote:Carbon Dioxide hasn't made a Gigantic gain in our atmosphere like everyone assumes. ... the Ocean absorbes it
Carbonic acid is CO2 in a water solution, and there are reports of this affecting ocean-living plants and animals, for examples corals who are dependant on quite a basic environment for creating their shells.

Right, and it is killing a lot of the coral reefs -- they are getting "bleached" and huge areas that were teaming with a huge variety of life, are now desolate and gray.

Too much of anything is bad. We have about 21% oxygen in the air -- what happens if we got up to, oh say 30%?

We would all self-combust!

Plants consume CO2 -- what would happen to them if they start getting 50% more of it?