Should you believe in climate change?

[GunMaster357]

Problem with such a subject is that it is so charged politically. My own opinion would probably make an ecologist go up in flames but here it goes :

We're not the cause of global warming.
Most probably it is a phase our planet goes through.
We're just accelerating it.

You'll remark that I do not deny the climate is changing. Yet, a lot of people would think so.

Sure, we should do something to at least minimize our impact in this. But we're going at it without thinking clearly.

All of us have to change our manner of thinking. And you can not make it happens by issueing laws.

I don't know the situation in other countries but, here in France, wind power is all the rage. Since Brittany is a windy place, there are wind farms projects nearly everywhere. Personally, I don't have a thing against wind farms if the project is about producing energy not making a political coup.

Did I mention that Brittany is windy? It is windy enough that for nearly a quarter of the year we have winds in excess of 55 mph... the cut-out speed of a Nordex N80/2500 a typical windmill model.

Solar power is still in its infancy. In France, it was sustainable because you could receive state subsidies.

Hydro power? While our potential for huge dams is probably at full capacity, we could use microhydro to generate power. Around home, I know of at least 15 former watermills that could be equipped. Systems are well known, low maintenance and have relatively low installation costs... but when you try to come up with a project, the ecologists begin crying for the fish. Most of these places have been mills for decades, if not centuries, so the river ecosystem is running OK.

They want us to make use of public transportation. Again, no problem to do that, at least on my part. I even tried it recently when I took a 3 months job in Brest. Train station : a 5 mn walk from home. First morning train : 6:52. Second and Last morning train 7:52. No angst there.

Transit Time by train : over 45 mn (station to station) (add 15 mn walking)
Transit time by car : a little less than 30 mn (door to door) (no walking)
Last evening train : 17:24 (I worked from 8:30 to 18:00)

And it is not going to change.



Sorry for my rants but it had to get out... and don't get me started on our farmers.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by GunMaster357

We're not the cause of global warming.
Most probably it is a phase our planet goes through.
We're just accelerating it.

And if that acceleration is significant enough in itself, it makes sense to slow it down. I know that I will die eventually, but I would certainly like to put it off.

A lot of the fish we now eat is now poisoned. Logically, one would think that if most of the earth's surface is water, that it would take a lot to pollute the ocean.

But in reality, that amount is still finite. Even at 332.5 million cubic miles, we're talking about an 860 mile globe of water if it was removed from the surface. It doesn't take as much pollution to affect something like that over decades, especially as technology advances and with it increasing pollution and more exotic toxins.

So the earth is big, but the surface of the earth really isn't compared to the mass of the planet. And affecting what is essentially a skin extending up a few miles into the air and a few miles into the ocean is not that difficult. We already do this on a small scale with cities covered in asphalt and concrete that trap heat, something that is being looked at and corrected in some places.

In the last decade we have given up a lot of money and some freedom to keep us safe from the possibility of a terrorist attack that might kill hundreds or even thousands. How much effort should we put into dealing with the possibility of a global problem that can kill millions?