Global Warming not eroding ice shocker

[drew]

I didn't say that. I said man cannot overpower nature. Nature will always overpower man. It's been doing that for millions, or billions of years. In the scheme of things, man has only been here for a moment, and he really is rather arrogant to think that he has caused what nature does by itself. (That is not to say that we should not take care of our environment for the generations to come, but to say that this planet is behaving as it has always behaved and will carry on behaving, long after man has gone.)

Ok, but when has anyone said that man will try and overpower nature which suggests a sense of control. However, you comment about arrogance is intriguing as in you bracketed sentence you state we should take care of the environment. Why? If man cannot affect it why worry about the environment? You seem to contradict yourself. Do you not think the deforestation of the Amazon, if unchecked, has no effect? You refute any suggestion that greenhouse gases have contributed to global warming?

 

[beorhthelm]

There's been a number of posts on the fate of the combustion engine here so I thought I'd pipe up. You're right,the combustion engine is going nowhere,but what it burns will change. Water to be precise,and the technology exists and certainly has been suppressed by both manufacturers and governments for obvious reasons. But the day us common people will be allowed to use it is coming closer

firstly, no you cant combust water. its a highly stable compound thats already oxidised. you have to first split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, so that you can combust back into water. that spliting takes energy, im no chemist/physicist but understand this process takes more energy than you get from combusting the hydrogen. secondly, it hasnt been suppressed for the same reasons i state before, why would car manufactures or non-western governments have any interest in suppressing such a valuable technology.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

firstly, no you cant combust water. its a highly stable compound thats already oxidised. you have to first split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, so that you can combust back into water. that spliting takes energy, im no chemist/physicist but understand this process takes more energy than you get from combusting the hydrogen. secondly, it hasnt been suppressed for the same reasons i state before, why would car manufactures or non-western governments have any interest in suppressing such a valuable technology.

I'm no physicist either but I know someone who is and is working on precisely this. A lot of investment in Indonesia at the moment on this, indeed this non Western government is keen which is why this technology may well see the light of day. I was sceptical too like you, but we're thinking about this in traditional terms and there are different ways to do it - something to do with vortices and aligning atoms. Anyway, supposedly it works.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Arctic ice cover hit a record low last year.

Alhough 2013 has seen a 50% increase in volume

Which is it?

 

[Husty]

Who said hydrogen fuel cells? I said water. Internal combustion engines that burn water have been invented many times. Free fuel. Wonder why that never sees the light of day

No, no they havn't.

 

[Husty]

I was sceptical too like you, but we're thinking about this in traditional terms and there are different ways to do it - something to do with vortices and aligning atoms. Anyway, supposedly it works.

Yes I hear voodoo might work as well

Sounds like homeopathy to me.

 

[beorhthelm]

...but we're thinking about this in traditional terms and there are different ways to do it - something to do with vortices and aligning atoms. Anyway, supposedly it works.

oh dear, "aligning atoms"... come back when there's an indepedently verified operation.

 

[Husty]

oh dear, "aligning atoms"... come back when there's an indepedently verified operation.

The only reason the research is only being done in Malaysia is because that is the only government that they have managed to con with their homeopathic nonsense I'd wager.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

oh dear, "aligning atoms"... come back when there's an indepedently verified operation.

Well, we'll see I guess. Anyway I thought you said you're not a physicist. Why assume that all future technologies will be understandable by laymen like you and I? That would be very naive

 

[Seagull27]

firstly, no you cant combust water. its a highly stable compound thats already oxidised. you have to first split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, so that you can combust back into water. that spliting takes energy, im no chemist/physicist but understand this process takes more energy than you get from combusting the hydrogen. secondly, it hasnt been suppressed for the same reasons i state before, why would car manufactures or non-western governments have any interest in suppressing such a valuable technology.

Currently it does, but with research we may be able to find a catalyst and/or process that splits water more efficiently than it is burned.

 

[£1.99]

When do they estimate that oil, coal and natural gas reserves will now run out? I remember at school they used to teach us that they would have run out by now, and some would have all gone before the turn of the millenium but clearly this was wrong but how much longer can it continue?

Yes I remember being taught this at school. Anyone know when it will run out?

 

[beorhthelm]

Well, we'll see I guess. Anyway I thought you said you're not a physicist. Why assume that all future technologies will be understandable by laymen like you and I? That would be very naive

but i paid attention at school and all the scientist say this stuff guff. its a modern version of alchemy, replace lead and gold for water and fuel. you find people have been making the claims for decades, yet the method never comes to widespread public knowledge somehow (or its Browns gas and a battery). thats attibuted to being "suppressed" rather than accept the claims were fraudulant. unless theres a theory to underpin this with some revolutionary new process (as seagul27 points to), then this is the same old.

 

[SeagullSongs]

Who said hydrogen fuel cells? I said water. Internal combustion engines that burn water have been invented many times. Free fuel. Wonder why that never sees the light of day

Oh, you were being serious?

 

[Guy Fawkes]

i have formed my own opinions , i still drive a car which is fuelled by petrol and the electricity i use comes from a coal powered electrical plant.........i don't know how old you are but the Amazon was pretty well untouched 40 years ago...........extreme/critical uv levels have only come about in the last 15 years with the depletion of the ozone layer , companies like bp , shell , chevron etc are still scouring the planet with massive deposits of coal and oil recently being found in queensland and ghana...........the amount of oil and gas involved in the north west shelf chevron project off the coast of w.a is still un-confirmed but reported to be massive.

the human population of the planet has quadrupled inside the last half a century..........the ocean has huge areas that are "bioligically dead" not to mention the 175,000 sq/k/m,s of plastic rubbish swirling around in the middle of the pacific........as for the questions asked in your first four paragraphs ,i believe it all comes down to money at the end of the day , you would have to ask the c.e.o's of such companies why their policies are what they are.

Opinions based on what though?

The scaremongering by those who push global warming / climate change and say we are doomed if we don't change now?

Why is it no longer called global warming? - because the planet is not actually warming!
Can't the climate change thing be down to natural factors such as El nino weather patterns which occur naturally and so on and in a few years time when the latest scare tactics no longer hold up, they move onto the next guess which they will sell as fact and vilify those who question it.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to move away from traditional fossil fuels and seek practical alternatives and having something viable to replace fossil fuels when they run out, but it is less scary for Governments, etc to claim that we need to switch asap to new fuels and penalise those who continue to use the old fuels (taxes, etc) because of global warming rather than to say that in anything from 10 to 60 years we could have run out of oil and natural gas completely (estimated 50 years worth of gas left and oil predicted to run out between 2025 and 2070 - source http://www.carboncounted.co.uk/when-will-fossil-fuels-run-out.html)

When we do run out of oil, what will things like computers and so many other everyday products be made of instead (how does wind power or solar energy make packaging and drinks bottles and so on? (why are we even using plastic for bottles when we can use metal which can be recycled easily?)

Taking the last paragraph of this webpage

Alternatives to Fossil Fuels
There are plenty of alternative energy sources that are renewable or in constant supply such as wind power and solar power. Most people are now realising that a massive switch to these types of power source will be required in the future but, it seems to be human nature that the urgency to make this happen will not be great enough until the prospect of running out of fossil fuels is much closer.

Is the green scaremongering really just a way to get us more willing to switch earlier? (or should we wait and allow other countries to develop the tech and great expense and reap the benefits later when the cost is considerably reduced and the tech is far more efficient?)

Why haven't we on things like nuclear fuels and trying to solve the issue of the radioactive waste produced, if this can be resolved, we have a source of fuel with zero CO2 emissions that could help us meet our future energy consumption needs without having to buy energy from foriegn countries and increasing our deficit in our balance of trades, making the country poorer and harder to fund social projects like infrastructure, and public services?

 

[BadFish]

Opinions based on what though?

Maybe based on the 97% of peer reviewed scientists who believe that man has an effect on climate change

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-advanced.htm

Unless anyone can disprove the studies carried out here I am sticking with the massive majority of scientists who know far more than me about it.

Even this rather weak Murdoch sponsered argument against the study states "that almost everybody in the climate debate agrees carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and human activities have warmed the planet to some extent."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/consensus-on-changing-climate-just-pr-campaign/story-e6frg6zo-1226718828707#

 

[waldegrave]

Good statistic but insufficiently descriptive, I think. Should read - '97% of 100% of peer reviewed scientists whose income and/or careers are dependent upon sustaining the man-made global warming myth'. That's OK you're more than welcome. No thanks necessary. And on the same subject, science is a process of discovering Truth. It is the Church of Scientology that's in the Belief biz. Not to worry, they're easily confused. You are by no means the first.

 

[BadFish]

Good statistic but insufficiently descriptive, I think. Should read - '97% of 100% of peer reviewed scientists whose income and/or careers are dependent upon sustaining the man-made global warming myth'. That's OK you're more than welcome. No thanks necessary. And on the same subject, science is a process of discovering Truth. It is the Church of Scientology that's in the Belief biz. Not to worry, they're easily confused. You are by no means the first.

Thanks for the lesson in semantics. Any thoughts on the statistics offered (aside from the assumption that all the studies studied were made by people dependent on climate change and the inferred defamation that they have skewed their studies to further their own ends - I would need firm evidence before I accepted this accusation).

Like I say until I find that scientific consensus suggests something else I will continue to ' believe' in man made climate change).

Very happy to be confused, even happier to be wrong as the consequences of me and the scientist being wrong are far less consequential than the consequences of the skeptics being wrong.

Welcome to NSC by the way

 

[BadFish]

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus

Seems to be a fair amount of consensus on the NASA website too.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Did you hear the joke about the climate scientists getting trapped by ice in Antarctica?

 

[wellquickwoody]

97% of peer reviewed scientists

Terminology designed to intimidate anyone brave enough to challenge the author(s) report. I'm sure it may well be grammatically correct but WTF?

I know who my peers are (I used to have 2 in Brighton, but 1 disappeared)

Reviewed - yeah,OK

Scientist - Clever bloke, white coat, big forehead

Even if the term is as simple as it appears to read, I still cannot be sure of what it means. Bit like small print in financial/legal documents - designed to confuse.