4Runner and the Environment (Global Warming)...your thoughts?

[Jeff Kleb]

Rather simplistic, but I heard an interesting quote on the radio the other day.

People were talking about climate change and global warming and one caller succinctly said: "Our weather service cannot predict what the weather will be one month from today, so how is someone supposed to know what it will be like in two hundred years?"

Again, as I have said ad nauseam here and elsewhere, once it is proven (and it has not yet been proven) that global warming absolutely is happening over the long term - not just year to year or decade to decade, there is still the issue of someone showing absolute and non-disputable evidence that it is indeed caused by man. It is the old "cause and effect" relationship that must be found true!

That, folks, is the sticky wicket.

 

[gonzo]

i do wonder at what point people will accept a theory as "proven." there are those that deny the holocaust and those that still think that there are wmds in iraq. i do find it curious that most other developed countries have accepted that global warming is a reality, however, in the u.s. global warming is always presented as a "theory" that may or may not be true. are we more informed than the rest of the world? i doubt it. something tells me that the proof is there, but it is being distorted.

independent of the global warming issue, i still have heard very little on the degree to which humans are contributing to the problem.

 

[Jeff Kleb]

Global Warming


Okay, let's assume that we are in a long-term warming period. For argument's sake, let's go with the premise that our climate is indeed changing and that the overall temperature of the Earth will rise 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years.

First of all, why is this happening? Is it absolutely because of mankind, folks using A/C in the summer and driving SUVs to work? Is it brought about by an increase in world population? Could it be because of natural phenomena? What about the change in the amount of radiation & heat put out by the sun? What about geothermal or volcanic activity? What about the Earth's orbit?

Once that is established, just what do we do about it? Can we do anything at all? If population is to blame (and the accompanying industrialization), why do so many want to blame the USA? After all, it is the so-called 'developing nations' where there is the most pollution and highest population growth.

Should we be working on some type of way to lower the temperature? If so, just how do we go about it? Then again, could global warming be good for the the planet and good for humanity in the long run? You could argue that we'd have a longer growing season and more arable land if the climate were a bit warmer. Imagine seeing Siberia as another breadbasket for starving folks in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Okay, end of my caffeine-fueled rant. I'll check back soon to see if anyone has anything else to add.
:beer:

 

[uzibear]

Originally posted by sharp4runr Hell, the weathermen can't even predict if it'll be raining next week, what makes us think we know what will be going next year or a decade?

i don't know why, but i find that a very lucid point.

 

[uzibear]

here's something else to consider: it also takes energy to MAKE new vehicles. one way you can help the environment is to keep an old car running rather than buying a new one. something generally not considered. everyone loves to focus on cars, but come on; we desperately need to focus on companies, energy production, and other countries less fortunate and more poluting.

i'm a huge environmentalist, but my primary desire is to see areas kept pristine. water polution, smog, trash, CONSTRUCTION; we have to live somewhere, but if you're like me (and i bet you are since you have a 4wd) you love and want to protect our wild places. don't let them take away our national parks, forests, all that.

i personally think global warming is unrealistic, but i'd be willing to be convinced otherwise. i'm generally a very energy concious person. i don't heat my apt or use AC. neither in my car. right now i drive a 91civic that gets over 40mpg highway. i turn lights off, use as little energy as possible.

the thing that i keep coming back to is the need for government involvement. getting on the backs of corporations and forcing them to higher standards of efficiency; grants and funding for alternate energy products.

more than anything i think we won't be saved by hydrogen fuel cells (a peculiar idea), or any other "space age" technology, but rather with better use of our current natural resources. water, wind, and (especially) sun. perhaps rather than putting a bomb in your car (hydrogen fuel cell), we could concentrate on building millions of solar panels out in the desert; and funding technology to make wind/water/solar more efficient. these are technological increases that don't take magic.

don't forget where you get your power. the absolute stupidist idea of all time is the electric car. well where the hell did the electricity come from? maybe burning coal? ridiculous. now if that electricity was being produced by solar, it would be a different story. and what about solar pannels on individual homes? these are real, valid and economically feasable possibilities. and really, as egalitarian as we want to be, the only real changes come when something is economically favorable.

don't be a NIMBY (not in my backyard); concentrate on what we can do; keeping our wild places, and our cities too, clean and protected.

and for crying out loud please remove the 4-billion gift shops, 5-star hotel, and jail (i'm not kidding, there's a jail) from yosemite valley............bastards


/rant over

 

[Uneek]

uzibear,

:iagree: with all this talk about hydrogen--it still takes electricity to product hydrogen. So even when cars aren't the ones spewing out green house gases, most of powerplants are still coal fired.

 

[Falls]

It was damn hot & humid today.........

 

[wasc007]

The real problem is over population. Polutions and consumptions are all done by HUMANS. Less birth, less polution. No birth, no polution.

 

[pipspeak]

The real problem is over population. Polutions and consumptions are all done by HUMANS. Less birth, less polution. No birth, no polution.

The planet will eventually take care of that! Just give it a few thousand years.

The good news in the short term is that scientists believe the world's population is about to peak and will then actually start falling in about 2020. As nations get richer, birth rates drop and this, it seems, is starting to have an effect, even in India and China (tho the Chinese government also helped with its one child policy).

Might not seem like big news, but I imagine it's the first time in human existance that the population on the planet will stop increasing.

Of course, no reliable figures exist for population change during the last couple ice ages, so who knows if that statement is correct or not

 

[EdDucks916]

Population control. What a solution (sarcasm).

 

[Thai]

The real problem is over population. Polutions and consumptions are all done by HUMANS. Less birth, less polution. No birth, no polution.

What are you talking about?! The world will be a better place with more Thai Jr.'s running around! Main topic of the day everyday: How SUVs can benefit your life? :bigok:

 

[Falls]

The total solution is to legalize all recreational drugs.....this way no one will ever notice anything and we'll all be happy as a clam...... Though it would put me out of work on my part time job.

 

[N8G]

Here is an interesting column written by economist Robert Samuelson. Column The money shot is summarized below. In that the global warming debate has been turned into a moral crusade by some (like Al Gore) when it is really in essance an engineering problem, i.e. how to reduce green house gasses. Whether you believe the gasses are causing global warming it is still an interesting read.

The practical conclusion is that if global warming is a potential calamity, the only salvation is new technology. I once received an e-mail from an engineer. Thorium, he said. I had never heard of thorium. It is, he argued, a nuclear fuel that is more plentiful and safer than uranium without waste disposal problems. It's an exit from the global warming trap.

After reading many articles, I gave up trying to decide whether he is correct. But his larger point is correct: Only an aggressive research and development program might find ways of breaking our dependence on fossil fuels or dealing with it. Perhaps some system could purge the atmosphere of surplus greenhouse gases?

The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless.

 

[thequickad]

Have to agree with population control, less human, less consumption, less polution ...

Very logical, WASC007.

 

[boston_kevin]

The earth is at an all time high for human population at the same time the earth is at an all time low for percentage of rain forest/coral/natural agriculture as compared to the overall surface area of the earth. So basically what you have is the amount of waste products is increasing while the resources needed to filter out and dispose of the waste products is decreasing... so where does this waste go? It sits around and contaminates everything around it... couple this with the normal cyclical changes the earth needs to go through to renew itself and we find ourselves in the current situation.

 

[mike1305]

I'm glad someone raised the problem of overpopulation for me.

I guess I will be the insensitive bastard when I say this:

Disease is nature's population control.

If we find a cure for every disease I think the fact that 10 billion people are exhaling will cause more CO2 emmisions than cars will. Not saying that I support thousands of deaths a day from the likes of diarreah and AIDS, but if you get rid of those diseases, the population of Kenya would be roughly infinite.

As for global warming, Jeff Kleb summed it up wonderfully for me in that first post of his....bravo.

 

[928s32v]

I read an article recently that was about shoreline erosion near where I live and as an aside it mentioned that sea levels at certain times in the past had been hundreds of feet below where they are now and hundreds of feet above as well. The present eastern Virginia coastline used to be dozens of miles further east when the sea levels were lower and also used to be WAY under water when sea levels were higher.
This stuff has been going on forever.
That said, I think our descendants are in for some deep : trouble. We may be able to slow it down with considerable effort but I don't think we can prevent it. I'm doing what I can to conserve energy and pollute less. My neighbors don't think much of my "natural" yard or my failure to mow it though.
It might be a good idea to bet on where the coastline will be in 50 years and buy some cheap future waterfront property. :biggrin2:

 

[mike1305]

Here's the bottom line: no matter what happens, humans will adapt and we will live on. it's just what we do!

 

[jharris2]

What are you talking about?! The world will be a better place with more Thai Jr.'s running around! Main topic of the day everyday: How SUVs can benefit your life? :bigok:

That's the scariest thing I've read in a very long time!!

 

[wasc007]

Tom Clancy had the right idea in "Rainbow Six". Create a virus and wipe out the lower life forms and improve the gene pool.