it was writ:
>>> > There is "Climate Change", there always has been "Climate Change". >>> > there was an Ice Age and the earth is going through a warming cycle >>> > that has been going on since the last Ice Age. (Geoff, as >> >> >> recently as 1982 scientists thought we were heading for a new ice >> age caused by global cooling!) >> >>..... and the Earth continues to warm up (by insolation)... >> >>..... until it is hit by a big meteor which throws dirt into the air blocking >>insolation and causing cooling (as in the last ice age). This wipes out >>many species. > > Not that simple, even for a neonatologist. But there is one simple concept nobody has raised here yet (or in the popular science debates). That was the old paradigm. Left to its own devices, the earth stays in rough balance by radiating out the energy it receives. However, (1) it takes time to achieve equilibrium; (2) the rate of radiation is less if there is more cloud or more greenhouse gases to trap the heat by re-reflecting it back to earth; (3) the rate of sunlight (energy) getting in depends on the amount of cloud reflecting it back and the amount of particulates stopping the sunlight getting to the surface and heating the atmosphere. HOWEVER, this assumes that no extra heat (energy) is released at the surface. It is patently obvious that humans are now using energy at such a rate as to affect the overall balance, and all energy eventually defaults to heat - hence the earth's surface warms as the waste product energy accumulates until it can be re-radiated to space as long-wave radiation. Unlike other historical events, we cannot tell yet if that effect is self-correcting. The only way to radiate more energy (as a very rough approximation to a black-body radiator) is to radiate it from a hotter source - hence the planet MUST warm up if it is to radiate the excess energy being generated at the surface. If we suspect that this is an undesirable situation, we must STOP RELEASING SO MUCH ENERGY. Ideally we will do this by being more efficient and not wasting it, but the fact remains that in the end it will raise the temperature ON AVERAGE. This is where Australia, as a amall buttechnologically smart country, can help significantly BY REDUCING WASTING ENERGY AND MAKING THE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE TO ALL. In the long term, we must also reduce the global human population if we are to reduce the number of sources of waste. Risk managers consider number of fatalities against frequency to decide if a risk is unacceptable - a single cause killing 1000 people at the same time is not tolerable more than once in about 10 years. By extrapolation, killing 5 billion people once in 5 billion years is also intolerable - so half the planet's population being killed by a nearby star going supernova once in the current age of the universe is intolerable. The only factor we have any control over (apart from rewriting what probability we accept) is to reduce the global population! (not in the way one loony candidate party at the recent election has proposed, either - by a solution akin to myxo or calici virus for rabbit control, or relying on war and famine as we did in past generations). The problem goes deeper than just greenhouse gas emissions - it is ENERGY USAGE at a rate beyond our capacity to maintain the environment in a range where we KNOW FOR SURE that we can survive it, and which probably takes us outside the range of geological history caused by variations in solar output in any time-scale we can reliably infer from the up-front evidence. CO2 is only a minor part of the overall equation, but it is the political flavour of the year. Wombat Dear Misters Bat and Kidd, I dont have the same intellectual wiring as most, so I am happy to be enlightened by those of you who actually know what they are talking about. But here, above, I dont understand. Please help if you can. In the above, Mike, you point out that we need energy equilibrium or we will eventually pop like an egg in a microwave, unable to absorb all the suns radiated heat, radiation itself and whatever else is bombarding us, cosmically speaking. You then extrapolate on that base. But, I dont see why we need to send any back, personally. The sun, in its infinite wisdom, gifts us glider pilots by sending heat in massive quantities, right in the MIDDLE of the gliding season, much to the general joy of all those airborne without a motor. I can hardly believe this is coincidence. The sun may actually be offended if we start radiating the energy back again, decide we dont like it and skulk off to a more appreciative society, closer to the centre of the milky way, reportedly a fun place. Good ol' mother earth would then get bored sh*tless, with no energy coming in to convert ground laying water into finer water vapour, causing clouds for us glider pilots to spot the thermals with. These clouds take a lot of energy to produce, some say the amount of water, gas, debris and shiny gliders within a thermal may be in the thousands of tonnes, and are spurting up thousands of feet into the cold, blue sky - the energy to do this comes from the sun and is converted, not sent back. The energy then converts a few zillion more times to create wind and waves on the sea, just to blow a ship into port, filled with container loads of gliding stuff. Is someone so naive to think this is by accident, they should check the hard figures! I dont think so, perhaps there is a god too? Nothing wasted on good ol' earth, us mortals just dont understand the scale of it all. I have to concur, we shouldn't be wasteful. Thats a given and the whole green thing is based on it. I look forward to actually spelling the word hypocrite to the small black waife in some hell hole near johannasburg, as I explain how much I save the world, sitting here in front of a $3000 computer, overweight, mid 40's and with a new child just because I can. I am sure said starving waife will completely understand that I am unable to send him the shrapnel in my shorts, enough for his next meal, as I save it all for my hobby, flitting about the skies in a $200000 fibreglass toy, just to see how far and fast I can fly. I can justify it by telling him my wife takes those pretty green bags with her when shopping, so as not to pollute the world he enjoys so much. I can scold him for even thinking about having that nasty electricity to heat, light and warm himself, I have found out the hard way that it ruins the world. I could try the line, to the small starving waife, that I am actually saving energy, after I release from the bellowing pawnee, and just before I land in a crop and 6 blokes get fed McRubbish in 2 retrieve cars to pull me home. Anyhow...... I dont see how we need to send back the energy, but I could be wrong. Kindest regards, Wayne _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
