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Thread: Pesident Clinton

  1. #121
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    Quote Originally Posted by planters View Post
    have you noticed that the consequences of climate change are presented as almost universally bad?
    Yes I have, and this is where I feel there is more pressure to conform. This is also why I avoided the term "Climate change" and stuck with Global Warming. Because some people in the Climate Change camp can only talk about doom and I agree with you that it seems they are ignoring some of the consequences because they might be favorable to a given area (even if on the whole the net effect is negative for the planet).

    pay me some carbon tax (say a few hail Mary's) or pay for inefficient green energy programs".
    Carbon taxes is where I draw the line. It's too easy to cheat when no one is keeping score. So why implement a fraud-riddled system in the name of environmentalism? Oh, wait - you say there's money to be made here? Got it...

    So yeah, I understand the spirit with which the whole carbon tax exchange was founded, but it's a hopelessly flawed system that really needs to go away in favor of better solutions.

    That is why the word "denier" makes me smile. It sounds so heretical.
    Well, if someone denies the temperature data itself, that is pretty hard to accept. When I think of a denier, I think of someone who says that the mean global temperature really isn't rising, not someone who agrees that it's happening but disagrees about what to do about it...

    Quote Originally Posted by planters View Post
    If you live in New Hampshire and the duration of the Winter season is shortened by a few weeks, would this be nice?
    So long as the increased frequency of Nor'easters doesn't cancel out the shorter winter, right? (Which, admittedly, I am not 100% convinced will happen anyway.)

    If northern Canada had longer growing seasons could more food be grown for the starving world?
    This is actually one of the predictions... That as the American heartland dries up and becomes unsuitable for farming, Canada will probably take over that role. So probably a wash in terms of net food production, although the midwestern farmers are surely going to be pissed...

    Would the Gobi become less arid.
    Interestingly, none of the models I've ever looked at predicted any of the current deserts getting wetter and/or turning into grasslands. I don't know enough about Climatology to understand why though.

    Would phytoplankton production increase, generating more primary food for endangered whales as well as a resource supporting fish for human consumption?
    I've also read a little bit about this idea. The problem is that increased CO2 dissolved in seawater drives the pH down due to carbonic acid formation, and many organisms can't handle this. (Coral reefs all over the world are shrinking as the seawater pH lowers, although admittedly coral is quite a bit more fragile than phytoplankton.) In the end, I think the answer to this one is "we don't really know". The oceans are the largest ecosystems we have, and we don't know nearly enough about them.

    the point is that the issue of balance never comes up and that's why I asked my question.
    I agree completely that the issue needs to be approached from a position of rationality, and you must consider the economics of any remedy. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: it may well be cheaper for us to spend money DEALING with the results of Global Warming that it would be to try to stop it. Honestly, we may be unable to reverse it with our current technology, so it would seem prudent to at least investigate what we could do to adapt...

    But as you said, it's rare that you see anyone talking about the problem from this angle. More balance would undoubtedly be a good thing.

    Adam

  2. #122
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    Buffo,
    Many of your points are valid and well thought out. The question of the oceanic effects is a huge one and, yes, poorly understood.

    As a side note, I have kept aquariums for many years and the stability of the oceans is orders of magnitude greater than what the beat aquaculturist can achieve. Global warming will produce smaller effects than if I miss a single water change, nevertheless I am able to keep hard and soft corals, invertebrates and fish. Furthermore, there is a whole industry built around "planted tanks" that routinely and continuously inject CO2 into the water to enhance the growth of the plants. Fish thrive in these tanks as well. Obviously this CO2 needs to be regulated because it can be toxic, but that is at levels far in excess of what these tanks can absorb in equilibrium with our rising atmospheric CO2.

    Just some perspective.

  3. #123
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    Was my point not convenient? *skips past evidence based thinking to 'won't need to go on holiday as much' island*

    I can't help but laugh at the idea that half a cubic meter of water is any use as a model of the oceans though. Plants use CO2 yes. CO2 dissolved in water is acidic. You check the pH of your water yes? What happens if you don't?

  4. #124
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    flip flop flippity floppity floop



  5. #125
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    Quote Originally Posted by ghosttrain View Post
    flip flop flippity floppity floop
    Aw... You missed the best one where she says "I don't know where my opponent (Sanders) was back in '93 and '94 when I was trying to get health care passed..." Um, he was standing right behind you, lady!

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/hilla...ly-behind-you/

    Talk about selective memory...

    Adam

  6. #126
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    can't help but laugh at the idea that half a cubic meter of water is any use as a model of the oceans though. Plants use CO2 yes. CO2 dissolved in water is acidic. You check the pH of your water yes? What happens if you don't?
    Actually, my largest tank is one cubic meter. Although you find this humorous, the analogy is very apt. These tanks and the millions of others around the world are a good comparison because they succeed even though their stability is orders of magnitude less than any ocean. What model would you use?

    Plants use CO2 yes. CO2 dissolved in water is acidic. You check the pH of your water yes? What happens if you don't?
    Yes, they do. They need it. CO2 dissolved in H2O is acidic and as the plants consume it the water becomes basic. They consume less and the pH rises more slowly. If the CO2 drops sufficiently the plants will become dormant or die. This is the process of compensation and the basis of equilibrium

    I check half a dozen water quality parameters. These vary much more early on when the tanks are being set up. Stability is more precarious at the start. As the tank matures and the equilibrium systems are established, less oversight becomes necessary. Yes, I do measure the pH, but it requires almost no intervention. These tanks are much less stable than the oceans, so this is a reasonable example.

    What model would you use.

  7. #127
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    Quote Originally Posted by planters View Post
    Actually, my largest tank is one cubic meter. Although you find this humorous, the analogy is very apt. These tanks and the millions of others around the world are a good comparison because they succeed even though their stability is orders of magnitude less than any ocean. What model would you use?

    Yes, they do. They need it. CO2 dissolved in H2O is acidic and as the plants consume it the water becomes basic. They consume less and the pH rises more slowly. If the CO2 drops sufficiently the plants will become dormant or die. This is the process of compensation and the basis of equilibrium

    I check half a dozen water quality parameters. These vary much more early on when the tanks are being set up. Stability is more precarious at the start. As the tank matures and the equilibrium systems are established, less oversight becomes necessary. Yes, I do measure the pH, but it requires almost no intervention. These tanks are much less stable than the oceans, so this is a reasonable example.

    What model would you use.
    Gotta say I'm always impressed by the folk who keep large tanks well - not just for the number of unhappy small tanks I've seen but it's a lot of plates to keep in the air with no real room to take a break

    Maybe i shouldn't have laughed as I do find it interesting - but funny because a model has to reach a certain scale to show enough of the situation - a teacup is a poor ocean and you get no giant ocean waves blowing across it.

    Say looking at just how far out of whack a locality can get in an algal bloom or a change in sea currents you could model parts of these situations in a small volume but you'd have to let it go so grossly wrong to see the effects we see on a worldwide scale that it would take out the whole tank at once. Pouring in oil or leaving a cold hose running for days just seems too facile a kill.

    I'd think it'd have to be a much larger system for enough variation that parts can go very wrong while other parts just seem 'a bit warmer'. Things like el Nino play out on such a global scale that boggles me and to be honest I'd love an answer too on just how large a model you need to do full ocean currents, I'm just willing to bet it's a lot larger and more complicated than even the 10-20m models the hydro guys do just for coastal flows.

    In my own experience I've worked with some quite large bodies of water trying to control algae and their biosphere to get them more healthy and whatever you do seems to affect the whole body pretty much at once. It all mixes too quickly and randomly. Maybe a network of linked tanks with some degree of forced flow to give the contents a cycle though different environments/care regimes. You'd learn what's coming to you will always be a little too low for example and adapt. Then have the guy upstream stop caring at all and see what happens downstream - how far wrong does his have to go to permanently upset yours?

    Hopefully no fish will die in the name of science. But say each tank just heats it that little more... by tank 10 there's a few less corals but the water's lovely to paddle in and everyone's happy - however by tank 20, which was in a warm place already, it's evaporating way more rapidly into warmer air and dumping it all on Bangladesh and we've got trouble. Sleep tonight will be filled with thought experiments

  8. #128
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    Never mind the big tank... I'm looking for that tempest in the teapot!

  9. #129
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    I'd think it'd have to be a much larger system for enough variation that parts can go very wrong while other parts just seem 'a bit warmer'. Things like el Nino play out on such a global scale that boggles me and to be honest I'd love an answer too on just how large a model you need to do full ocean currents, I'm just willing to bet it's a lot larger and more complicated than even the 10-20m models the hydro guys do just for coastal flows.
    I think you are stretching to make this more complicated and miss the fundamental point of the comparison. All the added issues do not address the fact that an aquarium is WAY MORE unstable than the oceans both long and short term. Nevertheless, aquatic life prospers in a well designed aquarium because they can. During all the far more extreme variations that have occurred in the climate as evidenced by, for example, the Greenland ice core data, the oceans have survived. We can see they survived. During 99% of the last 100,000 years covered year by year by these studies man has had no more influence than any other animal, yet more extreme variations in climate have occurred.

  10. #130
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    Ah! At that scale the oceans will always survive. Heck at that scale we'll always survive - it's our current (often) comfortable style of living and numbers that are at threat. Heck I'm sure man will survive some of the worst cases put forwards - the system will balance eventually to somewhere and we're hugely adaptable - but it could be a very different world and we can only change so fast. I'm a great lover of post-apocalyptic fiction, so many possible futures and most people with such a small definition of normal.

    My head's all sci-fi at the moment, flatmate force-installed Elite and has ruined me.
    Last edited by frostypaw; 03-23-2016 at 03:41.

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