"Geologists and people who do paleoclimate studies are kind of like Doctor Who," Brigham-Grette said, referring to the time-traveling British television character. "We can go backward and forward in time. We can look at how things play out."
But doing so isn't easy. Retrieving the sediment core from Lake El'gygytgyn required more than a decade of planning before drilling commenced in 2009.
The frozen Siberian lake, an impact crater formed by a meteor crash 3.6 million years ago, was an ideal drilling site for scientists because it was never covered by glaciers, which scrape the earth below as they flow and surge, scouring away layers of sediment and bedrock.
Scientists were able to retrieve a pristine record of the past 3.6 million years from the lake's bed, recreating a lost world by analyzing the chemistry of the sediments, examining the thickness of the layers and studying pollen and fossils trapped inside them.
That work is continuing. The researchers are preparing another analysis that will look even further into the past, examining the period from 2.2 million to 3.6 million years ago.
The research was funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, the National Science Foundation, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Alfred Wegener Institute, GeoForschungsZentrum-Potsdam, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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Add CommentGee, it was warmer 1.1 million years ago. What could have made it warmer? Let's speculate: Volcanic or meteoric action could have laid down a dark layer of dust on the ice, causing the sunlight to be absorbed rather than reflected, or it could have been from a period of strong solar activity which occurs every million years or so, or it could have been a combination of both. And science has shown that it wasn't due to CO2 levels and it couldn't have been from human activity(not too many humans back then). So what present day conclusions can be determined from this evidence? You be the judge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho or what can we blame for this warm period. Was earth anticipating AGW?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Fannandala,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is it you lot can not be bothered to read the articles you comment on? And why is it that so called called skeptics can not reason their way out of a paper bag?
Most adults recognize that a phenomena can have more than one cause. No one but fake skeptics who insist on constructing straw man arguments insist that the globe has never warmed before. Now are you aware of predictions made in the 19th century based on the physics that have been observed in the 20th and 21st century? If you can not name these predictions and then perhaps it is time you recognize your ignorance and go learn them.
Fananala "Who or what can we blame for this warm period. Was earth anticipating AGW? '
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue.. the Arctic was also 2 to 3 degrees C warmer about a thousand years ago...Eskimos must have turning up the heat for the arriving Vikings who actually farmed parts of Greenland.
The article provides a view of new research that shows just how complex the climate change process is and has been. It indicates the potential of interaction between the arctic and antarctic. I see nothing to suggest that human caused increases in CO2 are now excluded from consideration. They remain a part of the equation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgree with Trent. It is frustrating that people will not read and/or stop when they find a small bit of information that supports their own view.
One factor that might be more critical to the Arctic climate than other regions is the flow of warm water currents, which are likely sensitive to varying configuration of land masses...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConfirmation bias is a type of logical fallacy in which people rank supporting evidence much higher than conflicting evidence. Fundamentally irrational people such as geojellyroll just go to the line or part of a line, which, when taken out of context, seems to support their position. Everything else is ignored. But this is no surprise. We've seen these fanatics here for years. We've countered every argument they put forward. We've provided stats and science. They've provided blogs and conspiracies. Still the next time sciam posts a AGW article they post the same comments with the same lies and misinformation. Clearly, we are not talking about people who are drawing different conclusions from the data. We are talking about people with low moral character who will do and say anything to advance their political agenda. They are essentially sociopaths. Facts can't cure sociopaths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly, it doesn't take a sociopathic personality to cherry-pick for data supporting one's own beliefs. There has been a tremendous amount of reliable research done in the last decade on this phenomenon. Some of it has resulted in interesting books with a political focus (The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science--and Reality by Chris Mooney or George Lakoff's excellent work, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe wikipedia article about this mode of thought, which is less political, begins:
"Confirmation bias ... is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.... People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs."
We all do it. The difference between the deniers and you and I is that we read the whole article here; but honestly, the only way I will ever experience Fox News reporting is by viewing clips on The Daily Show or Rachel Maddow, so I also self-select supporting evidence. I, too, have no desire to round out my data set with blathering from the minds of people whom I consider dangerous idiots; I just define "dangerous idiots" differently than those who think I'm one of them.
The ignorant are to be pitied. But it doesn't make them any less dangerous.
Members of the "Church of Denial" _ they have the same characteristics as people who have fallen for cults; they're totally incapable of reason, and even when their high priests have been exposed as peddling nonsense, such as Monkton, Plimer et al, it doesn't ring any alarm bells inside their heads, so brainwashed they are. The next bit of crap they are fed, they'll swallow it and say, "thank you, we want more".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConclusion; that the earth has had warming periods at different times in it's history. That warming periods can be caused by different reasons (volcanic, meteors, solar). Therefore the present warming period could be caused by (let's speculate) CO2 and human beings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSystems resist change, which means that disappearing Artic ice, is due to global cooling not warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal cooling reduces snowfall in the Artic since less moisture is transported. Less snow means that glaciers are shrinking.
When global warming does occur then we will enter another ice age, which is the more normal condition for Earth. Global warming will cause greater snowfall and thus glacier expansion.
Measuring average temperature at the Earth's surface does not include a measure of cloud cover. An average rising surface temperature, and a shrinking cloud cover, is actually a condition of global cooling!
I find the article fascinating. For it shows what a wonderful and complicated world we live on. I have no opinion on our present global heatwave... but I do believe that if there could be found some common ground then a real solution might be found. Insulting each other's opinions is a waste of time and unproductive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat humanity is seriously overlooking in regards to the aquatic environment and its relationship to global warming and climate change, is the fact that it has a predominant inwards direction of conduction. Which means that any substancial additional thermal contribution, beyond that already being provided in nature, would alter the considered natural healthy thermal balance. I personally consider humanities massive constant thermal contribution into the oceans to be substancial. And surely enough to have created a worldwide low level thermal presence. And what the mainstream scientific community has failed to recognize, because of its preoccupation with CO2's alone, is that the key stablizing factor needed to keep the planetary ice from rapidly declining, is extremely vulnerable to this unnatural aquatic thermal presence. The key factor being the inwards direction of conduction, which is very fragile within our planets colder regions. In the lab, ice will suddenly decline twelve times faster, simply by neutralizing the presence of such a conduction value, without changing the water temperature a single degree. The exact same rate that has baffeled those "leading" scientists that have openly admitted that the ice is melting over ten times faster than their CO2 related predictions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisR. Blakely: Systems resist change, which means that disappearing Artic ice, is due to global cooling not warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Madness. You are insisting that the ice is MELTING because it is COOLING. The fact of the matter is that the Earth is warming and the Arctic has warmed TWICE as much as the rest of the planet. Here are is temperatures:
Global Land and Ocean Temperatures:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Here are the global temperatures by latitude band:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.B.gif
The truly damming fact for you fake skeptics is that the phenomena of Arctic amplification was predicted based on the physics in the 19th century. Funny how you lot refuse to even acknowledge the existence of these predictions.
CO2's are not solely responsible for the thermal increases that we are seeing within the oceans. Humanity needs to recognize and address its direct thermal contribution into this environment that has a predominant inwards direction of conduction. The sooner that we realize this other troubling unnatural contribution, the sooner we can begin compensating for it, and reversing its destructive side effects. Inclusive of adding to global warming and climate change, the rapid decline in the planetary ice, resulting in rising sea levels and a reduced ability to draw off the considered normal volume of atmospheric thermal energy, having been provided by the sun, also resulting in atmospheric warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike Scott I am not convinced that CO2's are solely responsible.There are other contributing factor's the sun is also a factor... however, we are foolish if we think that in some small way humanity has not contributed to the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what are the solutions? a severe reduction in emitting agents, and a reduction in plane flight's including other technology that this is related to them?I can imagine both sides in this argument would find this very hard to swallow. I am not a scientist. I am a poet with an interest. I will say this, why not organize a global experiment? talk to governments to arrange a three day period when no planes fly? I know that this might do more damage to an already faltering economy, but it would prove something, one way or another, wouldn't it?
Except the evidence to support the human activity conclusion has been shown to be politically motivated, cherry picked, manufactured and can not be independently verified. However, increased solar activity in the 1990s is a proven fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumanity can quickly reverse the negative effects of it's direct aquatic thermal contribution, and do so in a cost effective manner. But first we need to acknowledge and then measure the actual size of this contribution. Then determine how it might be accumulating and moving in relation to the tidal flows. Then, as a world community we would need to seriously consider, beyond just implimenting new thermal regulations and restrictions, a method of compensation. This method would potentionally need to include the safe harvesting of underwater thermal sources, such as with thermal vents etc..., and the implimentation of shading. The shading would be most effective in tropical regions where the seas are calm, and the thermal presence in the waters is the greatest. The most cost effective method would be to use large elevated solar structures that would produce electricity while blocking the suns rays from hitting the surface waters. If done on a large scale, this would reduce the normal solar thermal contribution into the waters, while also creating a cold spot where thermal energy can also be vented off, out of the waters. If done stretegically, we can greatly reduce the thermal build-up within the oceans upper DOW, ahead of where it would then flow into the planet's colder regions. Thus, restoring the conductive health to those aquatic regions, which is necessary to stop the rapid decline of the planetary ice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou cannot contribute additional thermal energy into a water environment that has an inwards direction of conduction, without creating a thermal increase or thermal accumulation. Water is considered to be a good storage facility for thermal energy even without there being an inwards direction of conduction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anyone else seriously considered the fact that maybe extracting oil from under the sea floor, might be increasing the considered normal rate in which thermal energy is being transferred from the hotter planet surface into the colder oceans waters, thus adding to humanities unnatural aquatic thermal contribution? While trying to collect aquatic thermal data for my research, I learned that the oil industry hasn't yet been required to provide sensitive thermal data to insure that such isn't potentially happening. Write your representatives people!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes indeed, and by our direct thermal contribution into the aquatic environment, which has a predominant inwards direction of conduction, resulting in an unnatural aquatic thermal build-up. And it is this aquatic thermal build-up within the upper DOW of the oceans that has triggered the rapid decline in the planetary ice, and not the CO2's. This is why the leading scientists have openly admitted that the ice is melting over ten times faster than their CO2 related predictions. Yet they've yet to acknowledge this other massive quite obvious human related contribution. A contribution that might also be being added to by the extraction of oil from under the sea floor. No one has yet to require that the oil industry provide thermal data insuring that such extractions are not increasing the normal rate in which thermal energy is being transferred from the hotter planet surface into the colder waters, even though experiments clearly suggest that it could be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig business and governments are afraid to admit that there's a human connection to global warming, because of the potential cost. But there are some very good cost effective and even profitable methods of compensation to our activities and damaging contributions. We can harvest thermal energy from thermal vents in the oceans. We can install desert and ocean based elevated solar farms, to reduce the suns natural solar thermal contribution to those locations, while producing electricity and other benefits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe human name and global warming means squat to the planet earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI could just as easily said 'except the evidence to support the non-human activity conclusion . .' Than we are involved in a pissing match.
If the global warming/human activity, let's do something, camp is wrong than no harm done.
If the global warming/human activity is bunk, do nothing, camp is wrong, than what?
Heck, I'll be dead before the results are in on that one.
Of more immediate concern is;
Nuclear weapon proliferation. That's scary. Instantaneous.
The Ozone layer. Check out recent 'air-conditioners as status symbol in India' article(s).
Ah, those should be a separate thread.
@Elegia, I agree that is the case with many deniers. Willful ignorance. But someone like geojellybrains has been at this long enough and heard the arguments more than enough that they can no longer plead ignorance. They know the score and they know the stakes. The fact that they persist in lying and perpetuating a campaign of misinformation shows a complete disregard for humanity for no other possible reason than selfish ideology. Who else other than a sociopath would gladly put future generations at risk because they don't "like" big government? Again, this is not about two different interpretations of the same data. This is about a deliberate campaign of deceit and misinformation by malevolent individuals for political and economic gain. And what is even more scary is that this is what is mistaken for mainstream political discourse. It begs the question, can western democracies truly function when the electorate has the combined scientific literacy of bronze age shepherds? The evidence seems to be, no. And our children will pay the price.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Gatnos, see that is what we call a lie. In fact it is several lies packed into one sentence. Now I know that it is right wing policy to continue to lie until everyone excepts what you say as truth, but we don't by that crap here. This is a science site and science tends to like asking questions rather than parroting glen beck or fox news. So, you may think you are sounding clever, but what you sound like is a right wing fanatic that has never taken a second to read anything he didn't already agree with. You are trolling in the wrong ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, "warmists" as they are called, are guilty of the same lack of scientific integrity that they accuse "deniers" of when it comes to Energy policy. What foremost "warmest" Jim Hansen call "drinking the Renewable Energy Kool-aid". I am amazed at how stubborn and dogmatic "Greenie Cultists" are, as I like to call them, as opposed to Rational Environmentalists, like Hansen. The fact is the favorite Renewable Energy NON-SOLUTIONS, Solar & Wind Pixie power ain't gonna do ZIP to alleviate Global Warming. At present, on the supply side there is one choice and one choice only, and that is Nuclear Energy. But the Greenie Religion does not allow that solutions so they happily embrace phoney non-solutions, and refuse to consider those non-solutions using rational energy analysis. So in the end, Greenie types are worse than "deniers" when it comes to promoting the status quo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig Oil long ago figured out that Greenies were "Useful Idiots", and has been financing them ever since. All Greenies have succeeded in is preserving the status quo and protecting Big Oil's Energy Hegemony.
@ Herr Schmidt and shish,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou appear to belong to the team that tackles the player and not the ball. Labeling, belittling and classifying people is, if I understand correctly, somethings a sociopath would do. Looked in the mirror lately? Following the global warming debate ( and it is a very emotional debate, definitely very little science involved ) one seems to come across a lot of these fervent AGW fanatics. Certainly doing their cause no favours.
@Fanandala, "Labeling, belittling and classifying people is, if I understand correctly, somethings a sociopath would do." no you don't understand correctly. But that is the issue isn't it. The deniers don't take the time to understand anything correctly. They simply change the facts to fit their ideology. "one seems to come across a lot of these fervent AGW fanatics", wow that is funny. I haven't met a denier that wasn't a right wing fanatic but it's the scientific community of the world that are the crazies. Again, I guess your plan is just to lie and distort the truth and hope no one notices. And you wonder why I treat you people with contempt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@dwbd, "Unfortunately, "warmists" as they are called, are guilty of the same lack of scientific integrity that they accuse "deniers" of when it comes to Energy policy." you do realise that the science of AGW has nothing to do with determining alternative energy solutions. Regardless, the reaction from those who accept AGW is mixed regarding nuclear. I personally believe we should be looking at Thorium-Fluoride reactors. I don't agree with shills of the Nuclear industry such as yourself that our current approach to nuclear is safe or even affordable. I need only mention Chernobyl and Fukushima and the simple fact that there still is no long term storage solution not to mention the issue of nuclear proliferation. But, as I said, this has nothing to do with AGW and it is pretty desperate to try and cast doubt on AGW because some people who agree with AGW don't agree with a nuclear solutions. Please explain the logic of that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDear Scott4402,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are the only person I have read that has proposed solutions. I have to say the ideas are ambitious, but that is what we should be doing, coming up with ambitious and brilliant ideas.
I am no scientist, so I have no data to rely on. Also I live in the UK where we have politicians who are, well, there is no other word to describe them...they are crap. However it is with these politicians (including the crap politicians in the UK) that the system relies upon to make decisions for the rest of us poor people.
But these self same politicians are on the side of profit rather than loss.
They need their plastic (or oil s**t, as described by a famous writer)for their bank cards, their pc's and their mobile phones and TV's and...on and on into the distance...this keeps the Chinese and the Indian governments happy as they are becoming prosperous making and shipping all this stuff about. Either by sea or in the air. And it keeps a majority of US and European company's happy, as lots of executives for these companies (who are based in offices in the UK and the US and Europe,and thus give taxes to keep the governments running) run about like headless chickens in pointless meetings discussing infantile masturbation, for no real reason on their Iphone4's. then get on their Iphone4's to their heads of production in India and China, to increase production of more oil S**t based products so we can sit about and call each other socio-paths... makes you think eh? But I think you know all of this already though.
Change the system. if the system changes then we will change.
In the end we can either do nothing and say nothing or do something and change the world. I want to be in the latter camp.
yes, but then, in 1350 of so they left the fridge door open, the Vikings swoonicles froze off, and the Greenland colony died out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHerr Schmidt, you are very generous of accusing people that don,t agree with you of being sociopath, malevolent, unintelligent without offering any proof. Actually belittling somebody like you do is somethings a sociopath would probably do. Looked into the mirror lately?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTackle the ball, not the player.
Herr Schmidt, you just confirmed my opinion, do yourself a favour, seek professional help
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Fanandala, "Actually belittling somebody like you do is somethings a sociopath would probably do", no that is not what a sociopath would do. A sociopath would take advantage of the person for their own personal gain without any thought as to the consequences for that person. But again, I guess the facts are wasted on you. I am dealing with the real issue here. It isn't about the facts about AGW, it is about the deliberate misinformation campaign by the deniers. If the deniers had a real point, a valid argument or even just a willingness to look at the facts then we could discuss AGW from a scientific perspective. But they have clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in the facts, only in advancing their ideology. That is what I am addressing, the low moral character of the persistent denier trolls that plague this site. So yes, I am "attacking the man" because the man is the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@"you just confirmed my opinion", I can't possibly express how little your opinion means to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCripes! This blog is rife with screeching alarm klaxons!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study indicates:
- current warming is NOT unprecedented
- Arctic polar ice caps come and go (without CO2 driving)
- warming is accompanied by an INCREASED biosphere
We are probably the first generation in the history of mankind that hasn't prayed to their gods, for a warmer wetter Earth. Will you alarm ringers please stop with the klaxons. We are just emerging from the coldest period of human history... the LIA. Population and food have never been so abundant. Things just keep getting better and better. GK
dear Scott I know my last post makes little sense, but I am a bit tired with screaming kids. I am a writer and needing to do research. My email address is andrewhunt1@hotmail.co.uk. If you could mail me when you can, I would be grateful
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKind regards
Andrew
"..you do realise that the science of AGW has nothing to do with determining alternative energy solutions.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNever said it did. And if those who study AGW, stick to what they know, and stay out of the Energy field, of which most of them have no idea, I'm quite alright with that. Problem, is most, who do blog or comment on the potential AGW disaster, also comment on energy solutions, and that is where there is a BIG PROBLEM, because they don't have a clue, and so promote Non-solutions, which only ensure that this AGW catastrophe, they claim is so awful, is going to occur.
"..I need only mention Chernobyl and Fukushima and the simple fact that there still is no long term storage solution not to mention the issue of nuclear proliferation.."
Once again, claiming to be rational & scientific, and yet making idiotic statements. Storage is a trivial problem, except for those who don't want is resolved, so they can continue burning fossil fuels. If you like Thorium MSRs you do know that they need spent fuel as startup fuel, right? And Fukushima killed no one, vs the tsunami killed 20,000 people due to bad preparation by the Japan gov't. Jim Hansen, unlike Big Oil Shills such as yourself, puts that in perspective:
...to demand improved nuclear power safety. Huh? The number of people who have died from nuclear power in the U.S. is zero. How to improve on that? The safety record of the nuclear industry is the best of all major industries in the U.S..."
"...No people died at Fukushima...When a plane crashes and kills 100 people do we choose to terminate the airline industry? No, we take steps to make planes safer...nuclear has the best safety record of any energy...new nuclear have great improvements..."
Notice you readily bring up the zero-death Fukushima incident, and the Chernobyl Military reactor that has nothing to do with commercial Nuclear power, but mention renewable Hydro and you will not bring up the 230,000 dead Banqiao Dam Failure. You claim AGW is a significant issue but not so significant that an easily preventable zero-death accident is way, way worse an issue than AGW.
And your proliferation issue has nothing to do with commercial Nuclear Power, the fact is that any Nation State that wants Nuclear Weapons can obtain them, and most have without ANY commercial Nuclear Power, which is more of an obstacle than an asset.
And France already replaced half of their total Energy Consumption with your "not affordable" GenII Nuclear Power in about 15 yrs. No problem. So you are wrong about that also.
GeoJellyRoll,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou believe that the Arctic was "2 to 3 degrees C warmer about a thousand years ago?"
Please provide your data source. Your numbers are way outside any analysis that I've ever seen.
RSchmidt,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said that people like geojellybrains "can no longer plead ignorance" because they have "been at this long enough and heard the arguments more than enough."
I don't believe it matters how low someone has heard all the arguments, they can still cling to their own biases supported by their own delusion of reality. GeoJellyRoll actually believes that the Arctic was "2 to 3 degrees C warmer about a thousand years ago." See comment #4 on this thread.
If that were true, I would also doubt AGW -- but it's simple not true. It's simply a delusion to support his belief system which may endure through his entire life.
Did anyone notice the contradiction writen by the author of this article in the last two paragraphs (excluding the citation paragraph):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Scientists were able to retrieve a pristine record of the past 3.6 million years from the lake's bed, recreating a lost world by analyzing the chemistry of the sediments, examining the thickness of the layers and studying pollen and fossils trapped inside them."
"That work is continuing. The researchers are preparing another analysis that will look even further into the past, examining the period from 2.2 million to 3.6 million years ago."
Maybe 2.2 million years ago was a typo, but my arithmetic gives that 2.2 million years ago was not further into the past than 3.6 million years ago.
@dwbd, "Storage is a trivial problem, except for those who don't want is resolved, so they can continue burning fossil fuels." The standard refuge of those without facts, conspiracy theory. The fact is, there is no solution. How difficult it may seem to you is irrelevant. Without a solution we have a problem. Solve the problem, then we can talk.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...No people died at Fukushima...When a plane crashes and kills 100 people do we choose to terminate the airline industry?" if that plane made the city it crashed in unliveable - probably. I could walk into a grade school and hand out cigarettes. The next day none of the kids that smoked would be dead. According to you, that proves cigarette smoking is safe. The crisis at Chernobyl is not over yet. The reactor is sitting on a floodplain and there is a mass of material in the burned out reactor that could go critical at any time. We have two cities that remain deserted and tonnes of radioactive garbage to clean up. You're right, there is no down side. Sign me up.
"And your proliferation issue has nothing to do with commercial Nuclear Power," are you working for Iran too? I can't believe you said that.
"the fact is that any Nation State that wants Nuclear Weapons can obtain them, and most have without ANY commercial Nuclear Power, which is more of an obstacle than an asset." and those would be...? And you call me irrational. If someone wants to do a bad thing they can, so it is ok if we help them do a bad thing. That is the rationale of arms and drug dealers. And I thought you were just a shill for nukes.
Since you brought up logic. It is not logical to say that your solution is ok because it does less damage than someone else's solution. For example I could say that it is ok for me to saw your arm off because that is nowhere near as bad as someone else shooting you. You could claim that people are using the fallacy of the perfect solution to argue against nuclear power. That may be valid. But do you really believe there are no risks or that the risks posed by nuclear power are not of a very serious nature? Are you really suggesting that until there is a catastrophe of biblical proportions that nuclear power is safe by defacto? We have seen at least two reactors go critical. What percentage of reactors in the world is that? When you calculate the cost of nuclear power are you including the costs of Chernobyl and Fukushima? I agree that fossil fuels are bad. I don't agree that nuclear power is the only solution. You are trying to create a false dichotomy. Sorry, I don't buy it.
Arer you actually serious?!?!?! If you think that getting all of your information from one side and then attempting to diminish the other with drivel is enlightened though than you are seriously deluded.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you cannot take in the information that all sides are presenting and make your own judgement(s), and by the way there is plently of freely available data for you to make some of your won conclusions upon, then you are another lemming getting ready to take the leap.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the 4 points Mr. Lovelace made in this article, which SA seems to have missed:
http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel
Sorry, make that Lovelock. At least I can own up to my mistakes!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLeaving no oil for our descendants is a reckless choice at best. Perhaps there are some, not all but some, synthetic materials made from oil which cannot be otherwise manufactured, that are indispensable for space flight. Remember Easter Island, a civilization which thrived until the last canoe-worthy tree was cut. We may be undermining space colonization and remain stuck. More plausibly, our descendants may one day decline as a civilization or in technology and need a simple energy source, such as oil, to rebuild. Depleting any – any - important natural resource is a truly desperate idea, which would only be justified under extreme duress, certainly not frivolously such as for mere additional profit. We should “Save the Oil”, not burn it all: save a reasonable amount of proven reserves for our descendants, for ourselves in the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne vast and yet untapped source of power is geothermal from volcanic sources. Small volcanoes abound. A perfect lab for developing volcanic geothermal plants is Hawaii, where safe magma flows are present at the surface.
In particular, the Yellowstone is scheduled to erupt as it does every several hundred thousand years or so, and this will cause an event analogous to a nuclear winter. This may, or may not, bear relation with magnetic polar inversion that has already started as the South Atlantic Anomaly, which may be spurring tectonic activity; it does not matter. To prevent this eruption, lifting the lid of the pressure cooker, by drilling simultaneously several dozen vent holes each about dozen meters wide, would defuse this catastrophic event and also bring a double benefit.
Regardless of geothermal, there are several clear paths to develop the green technologies that will enable oil weaning, or evolving into the post-oil economy. Low-tech physics solutions are particularly clean, safe and cost-effective. In solar energy, while photovoltaics will evolve to use a wider width of the spectrum, eventually using not only all colors but also the ultraviolet, and the infrared not thermally as a hybrid reactor but photovoltaically; while thermal solar plants, the cheapest known source, will grow in size and economy of construction.
It is not like we have a choice here: the oil will end in a few decades inevitably, and the development of post-oil tech is inescapable anyhow. It is best that oil weaning is done as soon as possible, so we preserve the most maneuvering space we can, and avoid possibly painting ourselves into a corner, when resource depletion and overpopulation peak simultaneously.
This article overlooks one of the fundamental factors necessary to form a legitimate comparison to the AGW observations of today's scientific community; the time factor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is no secret that the people studying climate history have long known that massive melts have happened in the past and the sea level has changed by hundreds of feet through the eons. There is few better places to study these changes then Hawaii. These islands are relatively new in geologic age. Most estimates age them no more then 30 million years old. There have been numerous studies here on underwater caves that were once above water and above water caves that were once under water. It is a well established fact that Antarctica once had a temperate or even tropical climate. This is not science news, nor is it a harbinger of eminent catastrophic failure of the earth's life cycle. Life goes on where ever it can get a foothold. What these tests show is that it is certainly possible for massive ice caps to melt. It does not indicate a specific reason.
What mankind has managed it to create is a biological menace that can effect climate change as surely as orbital variations, Volcanic activity, solar intensity and collisions with astronomical bodies can. This biological menace is overpopulation and the effects are just as real as the effects of a massive algae bloom on a once pristine lake can have, which is a mass die off of the resident ecosystem.
Just as the Arial Sea in Russia and Mono Lake in America have become graveyards for fishing fleets, as a result of poor planning and industrial pollution, we now know the ecosystems of the whole planet can become a victim of rapid change. The evidence is undeniable. Ignoring this evidence is extremely foolish if not outright criminal.
We have laws against murder and suicide, yet those most in opposition to green measure and oppose abortion refuse to admit that corporate cannibalism is killing people and ruining millions lives every year in the name of profit.
These in denial will not look at the destruction of the rainforests in ever tropical area in the world. They will not admit that nuclear power is at best an untamed beast and just don't believe the Arctic regions are quickly and suddenly melting.
Instead they say, "Drill, baby drill!" Conservation is not even an option. They feel they have a God given right to waste whatever resources they desire even if it means that future generations may only have the parasites living on all the dead and decaying plant and animal life left to eat.
Right. And it all happened in 100 years?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It is not like we have a choice here: the oil will end in a few decades inevitably, and the development of post-oil tech is inescapable anyhow."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to industry experts the energy mix is not prone to change any time in the forseeable future. While I am sure the first reply is going to be that the experts are lying then I would have to ask: are they any different than the peak oil proponents?
The end game for energy is pretty simple: the cost of finding and producing energy will regulate which source is used. As time goes on and it gets more expensive to find and produce hydrocarbons and therefore it will become economically attractive to use other sources and it will happen. Anything else is just dreaming.
Hey, Evosburgh
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am glad the industry experts have an opinion, but the point is not quite of opinion. There is only so much oil down there. And depleting any valuable resource entirely is just plain foolish.
I wholly agree with you that cost will determine which source is used, and that the only way to move to any post-oil economy whatsoever is through the development of clean sources cheaper than dirty ones (such as river dams where there are waterfalls, which are mostly taken already). However, development is rarely by accident.
We could be developing much more intensely several cheap clean sources, such as volcanic (exposed magma) geothermal, much larger solar thermal, multiband photovoltaic, the first two being exceedingly cheap sources if tapped, far cheaper than oil or coal. We could easily (develop technology to) push an early shift and save some oil for our descendants, not unlike we were able to (develop technology to) reach the moon the face of competition, for instance. Prudence is not as exiting as competition? Perhaps, but safety is at stake just the same.
One delicate point here is the extent of democracy and of societies being able to impose their will on corporations. For instance, Shell drilling in the Arctic: do you agree with this, personally? Do you benefit personally? Of course not; now, do you think you must be a communist if you disagree with the rich owning the Earth and everything below it (note that the airspace above somebody’s land still belongs to the State, why not also the mineral resources, and mining be as strictly regulated as airspace)? Why are corporate rights more important than yours, than everyones? Just because they are stronger? If we care enough, are aware enough, we can amass the numbers to outvote them.
Is it true that in fact earth is now in an ice age & that it is usual in earth's long history to have NO ICE CAPS?
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