My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[Flying Binghi]

By the way, I hope nobody minds taking a left field look at AGW - theres a thousand and one hard core pro/skeptic AGW forums about, maybe Hypo takes a different tack ?

[Eclipse Now]

Yep, cause this is the conversation the world really has to have.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by Flying Binghi

Moontanman, my understanding of the underlined part of your post is a 4 degree celsius drop over several weeks - have I understood correctly ? perhaps a typeing error ?

No, I believe you did not understand correctly. I believe (and hope Moontanman will correct me if I am wrong) that he meant a drop to a temp of 4C.

[Eclipse Now]

In the meantime, why is Venus so much hotter than the Earth? Closer to the sun? OK then... why is it so much hotter than Mercury!?

[questor]

So now we know that mankind is warming up the planet, what do we do about it? Lets' say we ( the USA ) cuts emissions by 50%, but China and India
continue their modernization? Lets' say the world population doubles to 12 billion in 100 years, what then? What is the GAME PLAN?

[Michaelangelica]

I am just reading "Climate Wars" by Gwynne Dyer (Welcome Scribe Publications)
Some interesting and some very alarming information
Including that both US and British defence forces have global warming scenarios and their implications for defence.

She gives a reason for deserts being in roughly the same areas of the planet which was news to me.(25 Lat. N.& S.). this is caused by the "Halley Cells"
Warm moist air is continuously rising at the equator, it rises cools and rains. Above the equatorial regions therefore there is a constantly replenished layer of chilled, recently dried air. This is then pushed to the north and the south by the warm air rising from the equator.
This cold, dry air comes back down to the Earth's surface some 2,500 to3,500 K away from the equator as it descends it heats up (due to 'adiabatic heating' ?)When it hits the surface, it is both hot and dry. This is what causes the world's deserts
(p52)
She also makes the point that IPCC is a science/government consortium and being 'government" their predictions tend to be conservative in the "policy relevant' conclusions; for governments do not want reports that force them into major unanticipated expenditures.
She also makes the point that IPCC research data is at least 3 years old possibly double that when finally considered. So the 2007 conference was looking at research from 2000-2005 (at the latest)

[pgrmdave]

Originally Posted by questor

So now we know that mankind is warming up the planet, what do we do about it? Lets' say we ( the USA ) cuts emissions by 50%, but China and India
continue their modernization? Lets' say the world population doubles to 12 billion in 100 years, what then? What is the GAME PLAN?

Good question - but I think that the real comparison is this:

Assume first that the US's choice has no effect on the other players' choices.

In all scenarios, China and India continue modernization, increasing pollutants and population.

Scenario 1: The US lowers greenhouse emissions and other pollutants and conserves resources. Let's go worst case, and assume this harms our economy, and we're in a period of slow growth. We end up with more people on welfare for a while, until we're able to fully transition to a service economy. We never quite gain back our old manufacturing economy, but due to the increase conservation, we're able to increase our tourism (the cheap dollar helps here too) and in 150 years, the world becomes too polluted from China and India, the earth's temperatures rise to unbearable points, and we all die.

Scenario 2: The US lowers regulations, and this helps boost our economy. We have a thriving manufacturing sector, unemployment is at an all time low, and the dollar is strong. In 75 years, the world becomes too polluted form China, India, and the US. The earth's temperatures rise to unbearable points, and we all die.

Now, these are definite exaggerations, with numbers pulled from thin air (like yours), but I think that they define the problem better.

Really, I see global warming as a game (as in Game Theory, not a fun diversion). Ideally, rather than simply choosing to be rational, we can decide to be 'superrational', and assume that whatever we decide to do, everybody else, applying the same logic, will decide to do. With superrationality, we can reasonably lower our emissions, knowing that other nations will do the same, because cooperating helps everybody more.

[Little Bang]

The game plan (which will never happen) would be to reduce the population on this planet by 99.9%. You do this by allowing every woman to have only one child in her life time.

[Essay]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

Really, I see global warming as a game (as in Game Theory, not a fun diversion). Ideally, rather than simply choosing to be rational, we can decide to be 'superrational', and assume that whatever we decide to do, everybody else, applying the same logic, will decide to do. With superrationality, we can reasonably lower our emissions, knowing that other nations will do the same, because cooperating helps everybody more.

Sorry to repeat this, but (I think) for Questor's benefit....
===

There is an option where more people ...live happily ever after....

Our planet normally exchanges over 100 Gigatonnes/yr. of CO2 --naturally, without man's contributions-- within the soils and oceans, by mostly one-celled biomass (and the above ground flora & fauna).

We could alter our sowing & harvesting procedures, accomodate 9 billion people, and shift the natural CO2 exchange to absorb more (CO2 sequestration) by five to ten percent; thereby reversing the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Currently (in addition to our emissions) our agricultural and other resource harvesting methods are shifting the balance so that each year, the lands and oceans absorb less carbon dioxide by several percent (of that 100 Gt/yr).
Changing our resource management practices would effectively speed up the CO2 turnover rate; instead of slowing it down, as our current practices continue to slow the turnover rate.
===

Originally Posted by **

In its Second Assessment Report the IPCC, 1996 estimated that it might be possible, over the next 50 to 100 years, to sequester 40-80 Gt of C in cropland soils (Cole et al., 1996; Paustian et al., 1998; Rosenberg et al., 1998).

...agricultural soils alone could capture enough Carbon to offset any further increase in the atmospheric inventory for a period lasting between 12 and 24 years.

...there is also a very large potential for Carbon storage in the soils of degraded and desertified lands.

Soil Carbon sequestration alone could make up the difference between expected emissions and the desired trajectory in the first three or four decades of the 21st century, buying time for development of the new technological advances...[emission reduction/recycling].

40-80 Billion Tonnes of Carbon (just in cropland soils) + even larger potential sequestration by restoring "the soils of degraded and desertified lands" would be enough to return CO2 to pre-industrial levels within a few decades.
...and there's also the oceans!

Why isn't this solution being implemented?

Originally Posted by **

This mitigation option was set-aside in the Kyoto negotiations ostensibly because of the perceived difficulty and cost of verifying that Carbon is actually being sequestered and maintained in soils.

**Storing Carbon in Agricultural Soils: A Multi-purpose Environmental Strategy
Edited by:
Norman J. Rosenberg and Roberto C. Izaurralde
Reprinted from Climatic Change, Vol.51, no.1, 2001
Kluwer Academic Publishers
ISBN 0-7923-7149-6

...and this isn't the high-cost, high-tech "carbon capture" CO2 sequestration schemes that energy companies are researching.

It's very low cost, requiring mainly organization and a change in culture and behaviour.

Probably we should not even wait for governments to act (acting on only emissions will not help us now), and should just start at the grass-roots level (pun intended), spreading the good word to gardening clubs, nurseries, hardware stores, churchs, local governments, planning commissions and zoning boards.

...see also: Terra Preta Soils (to enhance natural sequestration).

[Eclipse Now]

Hi Essay,
I'm so glad you're talking about soil! Tim Flannery, author of "Weather Makers", says we need to get into a zero emission civilization ASAP (combination of solar thermal, geothermal, wind, wave, micro-hydro etc efficiency), and then draw down the 200 gigatons excess by using Biochar soil amendments. It seems economically essential to do this in a post-peak oil scenario anyway. He estimates that we could sequester 6 gigatons a year. Once we achieve a ZERO emissions world, biochar could take us "Beyond Zero emissions" (hence the name of that global warming activist group, a coalition of Victorian and Australian climate warriors).

If the world adopted an ambitious Al Gore style emergency economy,
* it would create domestic job security as nations harvested their own ELECTRIC energy from wind, waves, solar thermal, geothermal, micro-hydro, and some limited biomass.
* create an ELECTRIC public transport system that New Urbanism could spring up around (such as trains, trams, and trolley buses)
* facilitate walking distance communities
* stop America and other Western nations funding people who don't like them very much
* stabilise the American economy, currently losing 700 BILLION dollars a year importing oil
* then assuming we are in a ZERO emissions economy by 2020 after running an EMERGENCY WAR ON OUR ADDICTION TO FOSSIL FUELS (and I know this won't happen, but just for argument's sake), then...
* 2020 ZERO EMISSIONS, 200 gigatons / 6 gigatons a year = 33 years
* This means biochar could, in combination with a war-time effort to get off fossil fuels, store all the Co2 in our atmosphere since the industrial revolution back in our soils by 2053!
* We have to get off the fossil fuels anyway as oil is at peak, gas follows a few years later, and then coal peaks sometime in a few decades. Just burning the remaining dirty oil will catapult us past various tipping points and we'll have runaway global warming beyond anything the modern world has ever seen, let alone all the gas and coal. But my point is those economies that wean off the fossil fuels first will be the most prepared and prosperous when oil hits $400 a barrel and gas and eventually coal all start to triple in price as well!

(Assuming we can also simultaneously create a worldwide demographic transition that solves population growth.)

As Scientific American just wrote, and as the Australian Federal Senate has concluded, and as I've been writing for 4 years now...

The second alternative, equally important, is a gradual reconfiguration of city life, to reduce our dependence on automobiles and raise our reliance on walking, cycling and public transport. We’ve learned that sprawl is not good for energy dependence, air quality, biodiversity, human health or quality of life, including commuting time. We’ve also learned that despite free-market ideological presumptions, urban sprawl is at least as much a function of zoning and the provision of public infrastructure (for example, roads versus light rail) as it is of individual lifestyle choices.

The current energy crisis will most likely worsen before it gets better. It threatens to create a prolonged period of stagflation, increased oil skirmishes and even oil wars, and further marginalization of the poor, who will find themselves priced out of transport and perhaps even out of food if the U.S. keeps up its dangerous policy of converting corn to ethanol fuel. Yet it could also be the critical spur to action, prompting vital changes in technologies and lifestyles. It’s not too late to take the more productive path, but time is running out.

Why the Oil Crisis Will Persist [Extended Version]: Scientific American

http://podcast.beyondzeroemissions.o...beyondzero.mp3

However, population growth, political fearmongering, FUD spread by big oil and King coal, international economic competition instead of co-operation and sceptics like FB all threaten progress on this important issue.