George Carlin said "Don't worry about Mother Earth.....she'll be just fine, with or w/out us......"---It is, like y'all mentioned, all about balance. Regardless of climate cycles, etc., anyone who disputes that humans are overdoing our garbage must have gone to Sarah Palin's school. GREED!!! plus so many people in our "closed system" (more folks to sell stuff to) have pushed the situation to the limit. We've got to continue to advocate for "green" technologies, but I really agree that the only tangible thing we can do now is clean up our own acts individually to the best of our abilities. Like Voltaire wrote at the end of "Candide", "It is time for us to tend our own gardens".....

Not exactly closed. It is semi-permeable more akin to an amoeba in the way it can exchange materials with the near earth space. That is one of the problems with the models. CO2 leaches back out into space as does the heat. A parameter is where the CO2 gets stored, such as in the shallow oceans from which it returns quite quickly versus the deep oceans where it can stay for around 50 years. Another is atmospheric cloaking coupled to the reflective nature of the surfaces such as ice and arable land that reflect heat back out into space versus retaining it for longer periods, the so-called greenhouse effect which is only one part of the problem even if an infamous one.

It is very much a living system. It acts, reacts, remembers and forgets. It is in a perturbable and variable orbit around a big energy source so much like your own habits, it has a home and it stays close to it. We are to it as fleas are to a dog if we continue to irritate it or we are as certain kinds of fish are to whales and sharks that clean it. In other words, we are parasites or symbiotes. The difference is we can choose which we are and act accordingly within the limits of the systems.

As related in a PBS special, we are the surviving race of four kinds of humans that walked the planet up to 50000 years ago which is not a very long time really. What seems to differentiate us are the rate and intensity with which we exploit the environment; so in that sense, our pillaging made us what we are: the only humans still standing. But that same attribute can return us to the conditions that created us: a vast world climate of deserts and a very small breeding population.

Our choice. Choose wisely.

Damn Mikey, that is cool.

By "essentially a closed system" I meant that what we've got on planet is all we have. Sure, you could split hairs and argue that a self-contained terrarium is not exactly closed and is affected by the room that it's in and the building that it's in and it's position relative to direct sunlight, etc. But it still has a limited area and a limited amount of resources. Same with terrarium Earth. Only we, contrary to what some religious zealots may believe, don't have some giant overseer to change the water if it gets polluted, change the filters, pick up the crap that we've made or drop in a handful of dried flies or meal worms if we run out of food. We're on our own. Ooo, boy! Are we ever screwed!

Captain Zap wrote:

"We're on our own. Ooo, boy! Are we ever screwed!"


The thing is, our terrarium came supplied with an enormous quantity of "renewable" resources.......that's where we have seriously screwed up. We have over-indulged and messed with the self-sustainability of these resources. Our account is severely overdrawn and it's gonna take some drastic changes and measures on our part to balance the account. But like most gamblers, we are addicted to our ways; our insanity lies in our belief that we can keep treating our planet like a toxic waste dump and one day a 'miracle' will ocurr and we'll finally win "the big one" to save us from the inevitable......

In human time and terms of consumables, that's true. In geologic time, no. The water on the planet arrived from elsewhere. Trouble is, that doesn't matter unless you're a rock.

Heat is a different matter. We get a cyclic and self-adjusting stream of that from the big nuclear furnace we orbit. It really is a matter of how we mess with the thermostats that regulate the heat exchange with near space. That's why it's helpful to think of this as semi-permeable, not closed. Just like an aquarium, we are clogging the filters that clear out the crap fish leave. Climate change can be affected by the consumables, most specifically, forests. Amazon deforestation isn't helping. Turning huge swaths of arable land into asphalt isn't helping. Melting the ice that reflects the heat back out isn't helping. Because climate change is conflated with global warming (related but not the same), some believe that just changing the production of CO2 is THE answer. It is only part of the answer. The warming that is an indicator of climate change is caused by many changes in resources, some related, some not.

One reason the US gets singled out is because when considering fossil fuel (oil, coal, shale, etc.) consumption, the US is consuming at rates several orders of magnitude larger than our nearest competitors. This affects not only climate but our security given our dependence on foreigners (most specifically, Canada) and the money we spend to get it. The US is by no means the biggest contributor to climate change, but it is the one taking the biggest risks given our geolocation and relative political concerns and our position as the world's foodbasket. Shifts of climate in the Southeast and midwest reduce that capacity and shifting it north isn't an answer given the time scales.

So no matter how you slice it, it is in the long term best interests of the US to go green. The problem is economic. The scale of the business dedicated to providing energy based on fossil fuel is enormous in the US. That can't be turned around fast without some serious shaking. Do it we must but that is a task that can take several administrations. All the deniers are doing is buying time for the current big money investors to move that money but it is a chicken and egg game. As long as short term returns are high, they play with chicken with each other and as long as we don't demand it, we play chicken or egg with each other.

So we have to incentivize the change. One way is to change the building codes. Another is to tax consumption at higher rates. No gain without pain there and the biggest single obstacle is the ability of the Sarah Palin's of the world to scare people, particularly the elderly and the young into believing this implies they live in poverty if we get to the necessary work soon. Third we have to make sure that offsets in consumption result in jobs in the US.

When asked what I want for Christmas I say, smarter Christians.

Good one; I have to steal it.

Another interesting discussion on the topic:

http://discovermagazine.com/events/chal ... te-change/

You can have it. I'll be fried for it Sunday and possibly on FB but it's a discussion that needs to start. There is a war brewing out there with the militant atheists being well-financed and on the move. They'll mow the religious folks down in debates and given the ability of the web to spread any bit of nonsense that relieves teen-age guilt and angst, it will go fast.

Once upon a time we had activists and agitators. Now we just have a spin cycle.

I had a very naive idea that would help things to a very small extent. Influence car dealers to plant a tree for every vehicle they sell. That would begin in a very small way to turn the deforestation around and improve the CO2 levels.

We can put a simple but evocative sign in front of each car:

Got Wood?

Every morning, thank you very much!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Over-information! Dave, you been hanging out with Larry too often! Uh, oh! I meant figuratively!

I claim plausable denyability!

len wrote:

"We can put a simple but evocative sign in front of each car:

Got Wood?"



Or, if you're one of Tiger's many mistresses (or his soon-to-be ex-wife),

Got Woods?

I did not have sex with that man!