CO2 and climate change-Really ?¿

[Ron Wenrich]

Its nice that we can put a perspective on the world, and think our way is the best way.  In some cases it is, in some its not. 

Corporate realms have rejected the idea that workers are of much importance.  They will use whatever is the cheapest available, and toss it to the side like a piece of used equipment.  They also will suck up resources as fast as possible.  They need sales to promote a product or service.  Without it, the corporation fails.  However, minimizing the value of the labor force just reduces the number of potential sales.  Henry Ford knew that and kept his labor force well paid.  He looked at them as customers = potential assets vs current liabilities.

I'm not sure that education is failing.  It may be failing in the way we were taught, but times have changed and we haven't.  Does a kid really have to know his math tables?  Or is it better to know what to use in which cases?  How many people rely on a calculator?  I can't grasp the importance of a cell phone or blackberry or the other electronic gizmos.   But, the kids can and they use them to their advantage.  Their computer use is far beyond ours.  Kids also understand concepts, although they may be different from ours. 

Why take someone by the hand and teach them the governmental system?  That just perpetuates the same system, not change it.  A lot of the stuff is just bureaucratic procedure, and is regulated by the dominant party.  No wonder they're turned off. 

The problem with the hydrogen is that it will cause a great shift in power.  If people can produce all their power needs, what relevancy is there in government or industry to meet our needs?   With lots of power producers, the government won't be able to control them, and industry won't be able to bust them up, unless they can produce at a greatly reduced cost. 

[crtreedude]

I have tried to always live my life by the concept of doing to others as I would have them do to me. Just because I end up in a position of power does not say I should abuse it.

By treating people fairly and trying to always do the right thing - I have succeeded much more than I ever thought I would. It would have been okay if I just did okay - but it sure convinced me that there is something to those ancient words of wisdom.

This is not to say that I am very nice when someone tries to take advantage of me - but then again, that is how I would want to be treated. It isn't good when you don't learn you lessons...  ;)

Corporate America has become very shortsighted. So has our society. We have to start thinking longterm and not accept people destroying companies and peoples lives so that they can live in a 40 million dollar yacht.  >:(

[Tom]

Why take someone by the hand and teach them the governmental system?

Because they can't make a change if they don't understand the rules.  It's what we teach them about Government that is important.  I can only speak for the USA.  We are not a monarchy, nor are we a dictatorship.  We aren't ruled, we are governed.  We, as citizens, are supposed to be running the ship.  

It's the segment that believes we are supposed to do as told that needs to be replaced.  We need to replace them with officials that realize that we "abide" laws, not follow rulers.  

I don't believe that our "system" would be made better by installing a person trained in another system.  I do believe that our system will be better as we incourage our youth to take a part and become involved.  That education is deeper than formal training will go.   It's an education  that must be promulgated from the onset by mentors and family who appreciate our freedoms and wish to retain them.

Our System is not just Federal.  The rules under which we live are designed by those in intimate contact with the citizens in the immediate area.  Our cities should be run by someone from that city, and the same for the State and Federal positions too.  It's not "good old boy" politics, it's knowing that the constituents don't eat grits and don't want to be forced to do so.

[Ron Wenrich]

But, the system protocol dictates that you start as a good little boy.  Follow the rules and do what the party wants.  They will bring you through the ranks.  They will make sure the rules are on your side.  The party will dictate to you how you should vote.  Violate the rules and you're out.

In our state there are 2 sets of rules.  One for party members, one for everyone else.  When the governor ran for re-election he needed to get something like 5,000 signatures.  When an independent tried to run, he needed 62,000 signatures.  Our local representative needed 100 signatures, an outsider needed 500.  And corporations and fat cats keep those parties well oiled with cash.  Lots of it.

People can think outside the box, and live outside the box.  As long as everyone follows the rules, government is relevant.  When the rules change and government does not, then they become irrelevant.  The speed limit is a pretty good example.  Now its more of a suggestion. 

Rules can be changed within the system or outside the system.  If the system is too slow in changing, then outside forces will change it.  Bringing someone along and showing them the ropes from within the system will not bring about change.  It only prolongs the lack of change.  The world is a different place and nothing will remain the same.

[Tom]

If the system is too slow in changing, then outside forces will change it.

I keep looking for terms like "bourgeoisie" and "Proletariat" to show up here somewhere.  :D

[Cedarman]

If it were come to pass that we could make our own liguid fuels for our cars and trucks, there would soon be laws passed that either banned them because they were unsafe or some such reason, (try running a still) or they would be taxed at big rates.  If it wasn't for the second ammendmant how many of us would have guns?  I am very cynical about our government.  Raising your own food is being controlled, try raising a few hogs to butcher.

A good friend of mine who I think is as ethical as they come was recently elected as a city councilman.  I know he is going to be put in situations where he has to make decisions that will severly test his principles.  Politics has a way of corrupting people because to get things done there are always "favors".  My late neighbor and friend who was office manager for a top elected official in Louisville could easily make sure that he and any of his friends would not have to pay any traffic tickets.  He was on a first name basis with senators and governors.  He explained how things got done in politics.

You can get good people in politics. How do you keep them good?

To get back to fuel...

If our energy structure changes in this country to where we grow our fuel, think what this will do to land prices that can grow the raw material for that energy. For those businesses that can harvest that fuel and get it to the processors or own the portable processors to make liquid fuel. 

Aaron and my daughter are now grinding cedar in so Ok.  They can move the trees and grind 80 tons of 15% mc material per day and get it on the trucks.  If this same weight were converted to fuel it would be worth about $45,000.00  This off of 2 acres.  Of course I am playing with numbers, but they lead to some interesting figures.

[Bill]

Warning - the following is a rant from a soap box and may raise your blood pressure
  ;D         

Alot of good thoughts here - and the scientific ones maybe beyond my recollection of chemistry/biology. I 'd comment first about human nature. Mostly democracy is supposed to be in trouble when the majority finds out it can "vote" itself ( thru representatives ? ) benefits. But I think as big a problem is letting ( our ? ) govt be controlled by special interests - be they the in crowd or big corporations. I'd like to suggest giving us citizens the right to collect so many signatures and have measures ( laws ) put on the ballot. I hope  ???  elected officials would behave more responsibly iffen they knew we could undo whatever they do - and send special interests the message that they'll lose their money trying to influence govt. ( I was once told the founding fathers did not want to allow political parties - they thought it would degenerate into bickering over who got what instead of deciding issues on merits ) .

That said - and bringing it back to co2 and global warming - I think an answer is right in front of us. First - as of right now - this minute - everything I've heard is that making hydrogen takes more energy then you get back. ( Could be something they told us back in school is that every time you convert energy from one form ( liquid to mechanical to heat to ??? ) to another you lose because no reaction is 100 % perfect - so an engine or turbine or heater or whatever will only be 60, 70, 80, 90 % efficient . Now I suppose there are some that are so big that its of small consequence - like if you could harness fusion ( the sun's reaction ) - we'd be in good shape but more like turning water to hydrogen costs more then the hydrogen you get out . Dead end unless somebody is feeding you big subsidies, tax writeoffs or grants - at least with what is doable now. ( Please let me know if someone's found an answer as I haven't been keeping up with the future scientific wannabees for fear they'll drive me to the poor house and drop me there ).

Second - Rudolph ( ? ) Diesel developed his engine so farmers could use their crops to get the oil ( peanuts were his first I think ) to run diesel tractors. He wanted to free them from the tryanny of business men. We went astray when we let big oil/energy take it over. Instead of pulling fossil ( dino ) fuel outa the ground and putting it in the sky we coulda stuck with growing the nuts ( nowadays algae shows the best hope I think - an MIT guy could make enough just off power station exhaust to supply all our current diesel needs leastways according to him ) . Growing the "fuel" to run the tractors that grow the fuel is what I believe is called carbon neutral. We wouldn't be fooling with Ma Nature but could run diesels all we want as long as you use your own ( or neighbors ? ) homegrown. Throw some ethanol into the mix and maybe we'd have a chance to leave the middle east to the sand dunes ?

So going back to human nature for a last $ 0.02 I'd like to suggest some easy thoughts to consider, suppose we :
all treat people like we want to be treated.
put things back the way we found them - like our room ( or our planet ? ) ( let's not get to green here - just that maybe if I grow the tree and you cut it between the two of us we balance out ) .
are all accountable ( or should be ) to someone.

Chewed up enough bytes off the FF server - thanks to those who read through this all

[Ron Wenrich]

Cedarman

You keep going back to the landbase as being a source of independence.  But, if hydrogen were to be converted from water and wind/solar power, wouldn't that make even the most suburban and even some urban properties energy self sufficient?  Wouldn't that negate the land factor?

Bill

Your physics seem to be in order, but if you impose the amount of energy coming from the sun you will see that the energy is way greater than what we use.  When you put that into the equation, things work out fine.  But, like you say, we aren't quite there yet.  The current main source of hydrogen is from natural gas.

Tom

The "bourgeoisie" and "Proletariat" are from the theories of Karl Marx.  Coming of age in the 60s meant that Karl Marx was talked about, but Tom Paine and Thoreau were more meaningful.  Also, the teachings of Jefferson, Franklin, and Jesus were also thrown into the mix.   ;)

[Gary_C]

One thing virtually never discussed is how large a factor soils play in the carbon cycle. Even today, the world's often depleted soils contain more carbon than does all vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Over the past two hundred years, mechanized farming and poor soil conservation worldwide has resulted in billions and billions of tons of carbon released into the atmosphere. Yet we never hear much about farming practices, only the tailpipe/smokestack part of the equation. Soil science is too boring for CNN I guess.

I am a bit puzzled by this. The just released "planting intentions report" shows that we need to average about 150 bushels of corn per acre on 90.5 million acres in order to keep the existing ethanol plants running. Back in the 1950's and 60's farmers were fortunate to average 75-80 bushels of corn per acre. I can guarantee you that we can NOT average 150 bushels per acre on depleted soils. In fact, farmers have available some very sophisticated GPS controlled yield monitoring and fertilization equipment that allows spot feeding of small areas within a large field as well as providing basic needs for the crop to be grown. In fact, I can't imagine anywhere in the world that it would pay to deplete soils of nutriments.

Second, I was under the impression that growing crops, trees, or any other plants removed carbon from the atmosphere. So how has farming and this supposed poor soil conservation "resulted in billions and billions of tons of carbon released into the atmosphere?"   

So where are the facts on this "boring soil science?"

[Cedarman]

True, there is always a loss in converting one form of energy to another, but wind, water and solar are "free" in that they are here on earth and will simply be converted to heat if don't use some of it to turn water in H2 and O2.

Ron, individuals could produce there own energy off of their own land, but the railroads, airplanes, trucks, and businesses that use huge amounts of liquid fuels will need a big source.  It will take a vast quantity of land to provide all the fuel this country needs.  If we were to get a net of 100 gallons of fuel per acre it would take almost 3 billion  acres to produce the fuel we need each year.  With woody biomass you wouldn't harest each acre each year, but it would require that amount of land set aside for fuel production. Just how many acres are in the US?

[jim king]

Now this is serious global warming.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earth's Inner Temperature Taken: It's Hot! Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Fri Mar 30, 11:35 AM ET

Scientists have taken the temperature of Earth's innards, more than a thousand miles beneath the surface, and found that the mercury there soars to about 6,650 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's nearly as steamy as our sun, where the surface reaches 9,980 degrees.

The findings, detailed in the March 30 issue of the journal Science, will help geologists as they seek to understand how heat is transferred through the planet's interior, which drives all geologic processes like earthquakes and volcanoes, and Earth's magnetic field.

Vital signs

Robert van der Hilst of MIT and his colleagues examined an area beneath Central America by monitoring earthquake-generated seismic waves in real time.

The waves penetrate thousands of miles beneath Earth's surface, effectively taking the temperature of the boundary between Earth's core and the surrounding mantle, if you know how to read the data.

Here is how: The speed of the seismic waves indicates the chemical and physical properties of the material they encounter. By combining this seismic data with mineral physics, the team calculated the temperature at this boundary as well as above and below it.

Specifically, a mineral called perovskite transforms into so-called post-perovskite at certain temperatures and pressures. The location of the core-mantle boundary, a place where abrupt temperature and pressure changes occur, can be identified by locating the exact spot of this mineral transition. The scientists' calculations put this temperature at about 6,650 degrees. Scientists estimate Earth's inner core to be about 9,000 degrees.��

"What is really the important thing is the amount of heat that can flow from the core into the mantle, and the amount of heat is related to the contrast in temperature," van der Hilst said.
Compared to us
All planets are born hot, theory holds, and they cool for billions of years.

Combined with a past study that estimated heat loss in an area beneath the Pacific Ocean, the research team suggests Earth's total heat loss at the core-mantle boundary is about 7.5 to 15 terawatts a year, much higher than previous estimates. Global energy use by humans is about 13 terawatts a year.

From their measurements, the scientists estimate that about one-third of the heat that radiates from Earth's surface into the atmosphere--estimated to be 42 terawatts a year--comes from our planet's core.
Magnetic mysteries

The new temperature measurements will also help geoscientists refine their understanding our planet's magnetic field, which protects us from cosmic rays and solar storms. The field fluctuates over time, for reasons not fully understood, and now and then it even shrinks to zero before flipping polarity entirely.

"We know the Earth's magnetic field is generated and maintained in the liquid outer core of the Earth where you basically have rapid flow of metallic iron," van der Hilst said. Since iron is charged, the swirling iron mix sets up an electric field that gives rise to Earth's magnetic field.


The turbulent flow is the result of convection, and a higher rate of heat loss indicates more convection and a faster flow. With computer simulations, scientists have estimated the amount of energy needed to maintain the magnetic field. But this study is arguably the first to nail down concrete estimates, not computer-modeled ones, of these temperatures, van der Hilst said.


"The heat flow that we measure is larger than what is needed to drive the geo-dynamo, so there is actually more energy down there than people thought," van der Hilst told LiveScience.

[Greg]

One thing virtually never discussed is how large a factor soils play in the carbon cycle. Even today, the world's often depleted soils contain more carbon than does all vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Over the past two hundred years, mechanized farming and poor soil conservation worldwide has resulted in billions and billions of tons of carbon released into the atmosphere. Yet we never hear much about farming practices, only the tailpipe/smokestack part of the equation. Soil science is too boring for CNN I guess.

I am a bit puzzled by this. The just released "planting intentions report" shows that we need to average about 150 bushels of corn per acre on 90.5 million acres in order to keep the existing ethanol plants running. Back in the 1950's and 60's farmers were fortunate to average 75-80 bushels of corn per acre. I can guarantee you that we can NOT average 150 bushels per acre on depleted soils. In fact, farmers have available some very sophisticated GPS controlled yield monitoring and fertilization equipment that allows spot feeding of small areas within a large field as well as providing basic needs for the crop to be grown. In fact, I can't imagine anywhere in the world that it would pay to deplete soils of nutriments.

Second, I was under the impression that growing crops, trees, or any other plants removed carbon from the atmosphere. So how has farming and this supposed poor soil conservation "resulted in billions and billions of tons of carbon released into the atmosphere?"   

So where are the facts on this "boring soil science?"

Search google on these words "soil carbon loss land use".

Here is a link to one study done:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ndp050/ndp050.html
Carbon Flux to the Atmosphere From Land-use Changes: 1850 to 1990

Its not farming in and of itself, its poor soil conservation practices AND a centry and a half of the worldwide conversion of grasslands and forestlands with marginal soils over to agriculture.

Fortunately by more widespread use of practices like no-till, soils can recapture HUGE amounts of carbon. I completely agree with you (I think) that corn based ethanol is not the long term answer.

Greg

[Gary_C]

Greg

You are right, this soil science is just waay too boring and abstract for anyone to pay much attention to these "facts." Plus when the report you cited has to make many "assumptions" to blame clearing forests for farmland and clearing trees for fuelwood to heat homes, it just does not relate to anything we are doing in this country. It appears to be just more of the old retoric attacking the destruction of the rainforests in some other countries and thus does not relate to "mechanized farming" and "soil depletion," at least in this country.

As far as my beliefs in ethanol, I do have to disagree with that professor at Purdue Univ. who apparently has claimed that corn based ethanol is the wrong direction for this country to go. However, I can excuse his claim as I know it was designed to draw attention along with grants and other funds to his research projects. That is the way that research and many new developments are created. There are many, many professors at universities all across the country that are scrambling to be the one that makes the next great discovery in renewable fuel production and I hope they all succeed. We do desperately need for many problems to be solved. However for the present, and past, corn based ethanol was not only the best available opportunity to produce renewable fuel, but it was the only one. It is readily available, has delivery and storage systems already in place, and production could be increased to meet new demands.

In the long term, I believe those ethanol plants will eventually be producing celluosic ethanol, although it could take ten years or more to occur. There are still many questions to be resolved including the enzymes or other means to break down the feed stock, what ever it may be, for conversion into ethanol, where we will grow, harvest, store, and transport large volumes needed, and what it will cost. For example there have already been trials run to produce and bale switchgrass and the cost was far higher than corn. We know it can be grown on poorer ground than corn, but most of that poor land is already tied up and not available.

There are many problems to be solved, but we have reached a point, in part because of the Bush Administration focusing on renewable fuels, that universities, companies, and even some individuals have decided that these problems are just opportunities in disguise and I am confident they will be rapidly solved. So in the meantime, corn will just have to be the right product to get this ball rolling.

[jim king]

By Jeff Franks
Fri Apr 6, 3:53 PM ET



NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Natural changes in ocean currents are to blame for increased Atlantic hurricane activity in recent years, not man-made global warming as many scientists believe, hurricane forecaster William Gray said on Friday.

"I think the whole human-induced greenhouse gas thing is a red herring," Gray said in a speech at the National Hurricane Conference.

Gray, whose annual forecasts for the hurricane season are closely watched, said the Earth has warmed the past 30 years, but that it was due to flucuations in ocean currents. He predicted a cooling off period would begin in five to 10 years as the currents change again.

"I see climate change as due to the ocean circulation pattern. I see this as a major cause of climate change," Gray told the meteorologists and emergency management specialist who attend the annual conference.

The Atlantic had destructive hurricane seasons in 2004, when four major hurricanes struck Florida, and 2005 when Katrina and Rita badly damaged the U.S. Gulf Coast.

In 2005, there were a record 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes, but last year was much calmer with 10 tropical storms and five hurricanes.

This year, Gray's forecasting team is predicting an active season with 17 named storms, nine of which will become hurricanes.

Periods of intense Atlantic hurricane activity are not unusual and follow the change of a key Atlantic Ocean current that shifts every 30 years or so to bring warmer ocean waters that encourage hurricane formation, Gray said.

He said carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere have increased, but periods of hurricane activity preceded the build-up of the gas, which is blamed for warming and is the byproduct mostly of fossil fuel burning.

The changing ocean current "goes back for hundreds of thousands of years," Gray said. "These are natural processes. We shouldn't blame them on humans and CO2."

Gray said the Atlantic current appears to change because of a rise and fall in water salinity.

The combative professor dismissed the work of scientific colleagues who have linked global warming and increased hurricane activity, saying they were simply seeking grant money.

"You've heard a lot of foolishness over the last few years," said Gray.

[Ron Wenrich]

Natural oscillations?  Another approach to climate change from an unfunded source.

http://globalweatheroscillations.com/GlobalWarming.html

[OneWithWood]

Unfounded, perhaps but he does have a definite financial interest in oscillations.  It will be interesting to see the peer reviews.  I do think there is a lot of truth to weather oscillations and it dovetails nicely with what Dr. Gray (of hurricane forcasting fame) has been saying. 
So all the folks living on the coasts only need to tread water until 2040 and they will be ok  :D :

[Ron Wenrich]

I'm not certain that its unfounded.  I've pretty much hung my hat on relic communities.  I've seen them and its the only thing that makes sense.  Relic communities are natural forests that are growing out of their range.  Stuff like southern pine forests in PA or Canadian spruce forests growing in PA.  It just shows that the climate isn't a static force.  That gives a physical aspect to the natural oscillation theory.

The problem I have with CO2 is that implies that we can control climate by controlling CO2.  I don't think that's the case. 

This guy is a retired weather man.  One of his points has been that the only grant money given out is if you support the man caused global warming theory.  No money for guys like him. 

[arojay]

I have two cents to add.

1 cent.  A fellow wrote a letter to the newspaper the other day regarding the move to flourescent bulbs from incandescent.  In the north, he says, the heat of incandescent bulbs is a valuable addition to the homes and businesses where they are used.  He had it all worked out and says that the cost saving to the consumer of using flourescent is offset by the increased cost of oil to make up for the heat of the incandescents.  He says there is only a cost saving and environmental saving for those who live in warm climates and use air conditioning.  The message I got was buy flourescents and keep heating with wood!  I'll be writing a letter myself.  These city guys!

2 cent.  Google up Pacific Decadal Oscillation for some interesting reading about the Pacific, weather and climate.  Most prominent researchers are Dr.s Stephen Hare and Nathan Mantua.

[OneWithWood]

Ooops, small typo there, Ron.  That word should be unfunded not unfounded.  Sorry about that.

I believe there is merit to both arguments.  CO² emissions may accelerate global warming.  Climate oscillations are a known and proven fact.  I agree that we are probably being effected by both.  I still go back to asking 'So, what are we going to do about it?  Are any of the people in the areas likely to be affected building differently?'

[Ron Wenrich]

I don't know if you can really build any differently.  For individual homes, you are hoping they will last longer than a few decades.  We'll still have hot and cold spells, so the insulation values will be the same or better.  But, homes should be built for the normal weather extremes in an area.

You can make a point about ocean's rising, but most of those homes shouldn't be put on the beach in the first place.  Normal weather extremes like hurricanes and storm surge seems to be more on the common sense line and has little to do with GW.

The big thing will be on how they will heat and energize the new buildings.  It seems that they still want to hook onto the grid and let the electric companies try to figure out how to make it environmentally safe.  I'd love to see some improvements in home grown energy, but it seems the Mother Earth News types aren't as popular as they were 30 years ago.   ;)  It still remains outside the mainstream, at least in the US. 

[Tom]

Ron,
I agree with that post so much.

Building houses differently may help our pocket books, but it probably won't have much to do with the big picture.  The reason I say that is because we (The Roman we) tend to disregard the relative time spans with which we are dealing.   The earth is 4.5-6 billion years old, give or take.  That's Bilion, with a "B".  A billion years is just so long that it's hard for us to wrap our minds around even one of them.  The first 4 billion years, there was nothing going on that we can relate to as human beings.  I know, it had to do with us being here, but it is like comparing the discovery of the ore to make the pan that would eventually be used to bake the cake that is topped with the strawberrys from the back yard; and now we are discussing the size of the strawberry.

Some will stop me here because I am talking mostly of evolution and they believe in creationism.  I'm not smart enough know which is right, but evolution can be talked about logically.  If Creationism is correct, it's enough to say that "we believe".  It just makes for a very dull conversation.

The last 500 million years, at best, is when life appeared.  It was single celled, apparently, and we know only from what we can find. That is when stuff began to crawl around.

There were all manner of catastrophes that took place over the next three million years that terminated species and allowed the developement of new ones.  The breaking up of the earth's single continant, Pangea, didn't even begin until 180 million years ago.

The end of the dinasaurs occurred with a supposed meteorite crash 65 million years ago, and we still weren't here.

The continents drifted, species came and went, there was an age of fishes, an age of horses, an age of swimming mammals; and they came and went with the movement of continents, the crashing of one continent into another, the volcanic erruptions, the floods, the raising of mountains and, still no humans.

Along about 4 million years ago, if you believe in this line, the apes began to walk upright and we were on our way.  We still weren't here.

Along about 2 million years ago the first human-like creature developed, Homo habilis.  That's still not us. 

Another million and a half years passed and Homo erectus appeared.  He still probaby wasn't using fire and we still aren't here yet.   This is getting close though.  We are now about 500 thousand years ago.

One hundred thousand years ago and, finally, Homo sapiens appear.  That's us. It might not be what we picture as us, but it's what the evolutionist say is us.

15 thousand years ago, the last ice age ends.  That's only about 7 times the age of Christianity ago.

11 thousand years ago, the wooly mammoth went away.

2 thousand years ago the division of the commonly used age of Christ happened and we began using BC and AD. Some of those who "don't believe", use BCE and CE for common era.  They are still talking about the same division of time.

1000 years ago was the Crusades

500 years ago Columbus discovered America.  So near in time that we know it was on the 12th of October. 1492.

142 years ago ended the Great American Conflict that some call the Civil War, and just a little before that, the incandescent light bulb.

100 years ago, the mercury lamp was invented

50 years ago bubble wrap appeared.

30 years ago came the cell phone

25 years ago the internet was invented

17 years ago the World Wide Web was invented

......and a bunch of fatalists got together and declared that this is the end of the world because we are destroying it.

Recently we've been given Viagra, and just 6 years ago, a self-contained artificial heart.

If we are going down, we are going down in style.  8) :D

We, as tree people, try to look at forests in the life span of tree rather than a human.
Not too many people have looked at life span of the earth's development and catastrophes relative to the length of time  we have been here.  It might be that we won't make it through whatever is happening, but neither did the dinasaurs; and the world just  kept turning.

[OneWithWood]

Ron, I would count how a house is climately controlled and powered as part of how a house is built.  I know it was a major consideration when I designed and built my little bungalow.

Tom, you are absolutely correct.  Short of blowing up the earth will continue to turn.  However, humans are supposed to be different from all that came before us because we supposedly have the power to reason.  Unlike all other creatures we live more in the past and the future than we do in the present.  So the question remains ' What should we be doing?' given that there are some strong indications that climate changes are occuring at an increasing rate, the population continues a meteoric ascent, the world resources are becoming stretched rather thin, famine in large parts of the world is becoming a distinct reality and major droughts will likely occur only adding to problem.

Sticking our collective heads in the sand because it won't happen (or at least we hope it won't) in our lifetime just seems to go against the very attitude you rightly attributed to a group of people who think in centuries rather than lifetimes.

In the end the earth wins. 

[Tom]

WAR!

[OneWithWood]

We seem to have that one down pat.  It does appear to be an effective form of population control.

How about something novel?

Mutual cooperation?

Peace!

[Tom]

How about the logic behind one part of society imposing its will upon another part of society.  Ultimately that is what this is all about.   The only socially acceptable way of dealing with other people's failure to accept your own beliefs, that has proven results, is war.  The annihilation of an offending culture will remove the threat to one's own.  The direction of a people can certainly be guided in a most definite and short  manner when threatened with their demise.

This Global warning thing has not even been proved to be caused by the human race.  If it is, it is being ramrodded by the fringe fatalists of the world. The same kind of fatalists that I saw in "The Loop", in Chicago, in the middle of the previous century.  They were dressed in garb that protected them from their imagined attackers, associated them with a century's old society and were waving placards informing the general public that the world was ending.

We keep worrying about using the worlds oil up.  We don't even know how much is there.  Some think they can make an educated guess, but nobody knows.  That stuff is buried under hundreds of feet and perhaps miles of the earth's crust.

Every thing that man comes up with to better his existence, a new faction is created to combat it.  People like Gore are no different than the guy on the street corner in Chicago with the sign.

If you want to identify something that you stand a chance of controlling, it's population.  The human population of the planet has grown exponentially ever since its creation, which is accepted to be about 100 thousand years ago.  You can plead with your neighbor to not have any progeny but you will never be able to stop him without brute force.  If the world's population is the problem, then culling it is the solution.  Who's going to make that decision and on what basis?  Do you select those that you don't like, those that are old, a generation of youth, all males, half of the females?   The way it's been done successfully in the past is War.   

Males are the half of the population that is responsible for the explosion of a population.  A woman can procreate in one year cycles, but is pretty much out of business on two year cycles.  That's one reason culling women wouldn't help too much.  They could, exponentially, raise the population again, if culled to just a few, but it would take a longer time.

Men, on the other hand, can impregnate many women every day.   It doesn't take but one dedicated man, followed by a few dedicated progeny, to get us back where we are today in no time flat.   Since men have been dedicated to war, they are expendable in mass, the population has been better controlled by their demise than any other way.  It's been done by genocide, war, disease and castration, all with fair results.  To get a longer lasting result will require that females be removed as well.

If the planet is in such a turmoil and has been placed in such a perilous position by all of these "people", then its salvation will come from getting rid of the problem, the people.

We have the means at hand to reduce the worlds humanoid population to, pretty much, any place on the above time-line that we deem satisfactory.  All we need is for a few of the bigger boys to be goaded by some of the littler boys long enough and vast areas of this world will find itself in a time when they don't know what is across the big water anymore.

The way I see it, if you're in favor of the oil/human relationship to be more favorable, or the corn/human relationship to be more favorable, a good effort could be obtained by becoming an oil magnate or farmer, or, joining the side of the little fellow who is doing all of the goading, because eventually, the big guy is going to step on you.  If you just happen to be a big guy, hang on a minute while I get out of the way.