Koyoto is here

[jaguar]

So we're all going to be saved right?
One of my favorite journalists has this to say.

There is no glory in the threat of climate change. The story it tells us is of yeast in a barrel, feeding and farting until it is poisoned by its own waste. It is too squalid an ending for our anthropocentric conceit to accept.

Does anyone honestly think Koyoto is going to help?

[Troubleshooter]

Like it says here at the Reason website, Kyoto is a solution in search of a problem.

"However, the alarming 5.8 degree Celsius forecast resulted from a combination of very sensitive computer climate models with economic projections that assumed such unlikely developments as essentially no improvements in energy production technologies over the next century and a world population of 15 billion people emitting four times the current per capita levels of carbon dioxide."

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by jaguar

Does anyone honestly think Kyoto is going to help?

Not me. The earth will create another ice age all by itself. The oceans are warmer than the ice caps so sooner or later, they will melt. Higher water levels will increase and redistribute pressure on the tectonic plates which will lead to increased vocanic activity which will lead to more greenhouse gases and a filtering out of sunlight which will cool the earth and possibly lead to another ice age.

Kyoto didn't stop the last one did it?

Entropy, baybee, entropy.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

Like it says here at the Reason website, Kyoto is a solution in search of a problem.

"However, the alarming 5.8 degree Celsius forecast resulted from a combination of very sensitive computer climate models with economic projections that assumed such unlikely developments as essentially no improvements in energy production technologies over the next century and a world population of 15 billion people emitting four times the current per capita levels of carbon dioxide."

So your article is saying 1) a magic bullet technology will save us, 2) the world population won't be 15 billion but rather 7-9 billion, and 3) the per capita CO2 emissions will remain flat, not quadruple.


Well, 1) I sure hope so, but you can't make plans based on some magic technology that hasn't been invented yet. 2) So maybe it's not as big an increase, but it is increasing. 3) Just because per capita levels have been flat for 2 decades doesn't mean they will stay that way. Places like India and China are developing. Once a billion chinese start driving cars instead of riding bikes, I think there will be a slight increase per capita.

Global warming is a real problem. Whether Kyoto helps or not is up for debate.

[jaguar]

While I agree koyoto is pointless my reason is a touch different - as far as I can see it's far too little, too late to have any real impact. The bit that people are missing is feedback, we're getting very, very close to the level where it kicks in, once you hit that point, we're essentially fucked. The level of annual rises of carbon in the atmosphere is now above 2ppm, it's getting faster. We may stop putting out as much carbon but the damage we've done and are doing to the earth's carbon sinks is close to a point where it becomes irrelevant. Logarithmic curve here we come.

[lookout123]

hey jag - are you saying i should blow off work and start planning my End of the World Party? i think i still have some of the decorations left over from my Y2K party...

[Kitsune]

My God and yours, Wikipedia, has a pretty good article, including a nice summary of why some countries are for and against.

[jaguar]

No, but don't buy a house on the coast.

[lookout123]

that is why i'm in arizona. i've got prime beachfront property when: A) earthquakes cause california to sink into the sea, or B) global warming causes water levels to rise high enough to put CA under water.

i'm sitting on a gold mine here in arizona. C'mon global warming!!!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by jaguar

......The bit that people are missing is feedback, we're getting very, very close to the level where it kicks in, once you hit that point, we're essentially fucked. .....

That's when the frozen methane kicks in and it's all over but the shouting.

[jaguar]

you can't sink CA, shit floats.

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

Like it says here at the Reason website, Kyoto is a solution in search of a problem.

"However, the alarming 5.8 degree Celsius forecast resulted from a combination of very sensitive computer climate models with economic projections that assumed such unlikely developments as essentially no improvements in energy production technologies over the next century and a world population of 15 billion people emitting four times the current per capita levels of carbon dioxide."

Your Reason article assumes some unlikely things of its own and makes some outright unreasonable assertions. For example, it isolates out a US government statistic on per capital CO2 emissions and happily states that this amount has become flat - therefore we have nothing to fear. Actually, this flat rate of emissions is a 20 year average that includes the oil shock era of the 90's and does not include data from the past 4 years when Asian countries, China in particular, have begun to utilize an ever increasing share of the world's hydrocarbon based energy resources. Even if per capita CO2 WERE flat, population growth continues to increase, as do CO2 emissions.

From New Scientist (available by subscription here http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...climate-change):

IN 1957, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 315 parts per million (ppm). It is now 360 ppm, that is, 0.036 per cent. Before the Industrial Revolution, the CO2 concentration was below about 280 ppm. Most of the extra carbon required to make the CO2 has come from burning coal and other fossil fuel; while part of the increase may be due to the destruction of tropical forests. When 1 ton of carbon is burnt, say in the form of coal, it produces about 4 tons of CO2, as each carbon atom combines with two oxygen atoms from the air.

The author of the Reason article somehow seems to think we are all now better off because we are now using more petroleum for our energy requirements then in the past when coal was the fuel of choice. Wrong.

Between 1850 and 1950, roughly 60 Gt of carbon were burnt, chiefly as coal. The same amount of carbon is now being burnt every decade as petroleum AND coal. Researchers estimate from the known amount of fossil fuel burnt, that in the middle of the 19th century the natural concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was about 270 ppm. This estimate has been shown correct by measurements of air bubbles trapped in the polar ice cores before the onset of the industrial revolution.

Up to this point anthropogenic CO2 levels have been mitigated by natural sinks - vegetation in the form of forests, as well as micoorganisms in the soil and plankton and algae in the oceans. Some CO2 is also dissolved in the world's oceans. One potential cause for concern is the possibility that whatever the natural sinks are, they may one day "fill up" and stop absorbing CO2. If this happened, the rate at which CO2 is building up in the atmosphere could double.

Again from New Scientist:

The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998; 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980. And Earth has probably never warmed as fast as in the past 30 years - a period when natural influences on global temperatures, such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled us down.

The global warming would be more pronounced if it were not for sulphur particles and other pollutants that shade us, and because forests and oceans absorb around half of the CO2 we produce. But the accumulation rate of atmospheric CO2 has doubled since 2001, suggesting that nature's ability to absorb the gas could now be stretched to the limit. Recent research suggests that natural CO2 "sinks", like peat bogs and forests, are actually starting to release CO2.

I'm afraid Koyoto may be a day late and a dollar short.

[Undertoad]

We should follow France's lead and turn to nuclear energy. Nukes plus hybrid cars in 2020!

Actually I do think so, even though I'm a Three Mile Island "survivor". There have been safer designs of nuke plants that have been developed since the bad old days.

(Remember, it's pronounced "nuke-u-lar")

[russotto]

Which of course is why Jag and the Europeans like it. And why even the Clinton Administration wouldn't push it.

There's only two real ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. One is a massive increase in the use of nuclear energy, and you _know_ that ain't going to fly politically. The other is the mother of all austerity plans; the only way to reduce CO2 significantly is to burn a lot fewer hydrocarbons. That means lots less energy use. At first the US could simply accelerate the transfer of energy-intensive processes to countries not as constrained by the treaty. But when that runs out, it's bye-bye cars, bye-bye air conditioning and heating, bye-bye refrigeration, etc. And since people won't give these things up voluntarily, the government will have to slide even faster towards totalitarianism.

And all for a theory about a chaotic system for which we have only the fuzziest ideas of the initial conditions and processes involved. New _massive_ carbon sources and sinks are regularly discovered, and yet some scientists feel confident predicting disaster.

I can't promise the predicted disaster won't happen. What I _can_ promise is that the result of the US joining and observing Kyoto will be at least as bad. We'd do better to have New Jersey slip into the sea.

[Kitsune]

One is a massive increase in the use of nuclear energy, and you _know_ that ain't going to fly politically.

I really wish the world wouldn't fear nuclear power so much that we even have to rename things that don't even involve particle radiation (anyone remember when MRIs were called NMRs?). I really think, if handled properly, that nuclear power could fix a lot of our issues.

Reading about Kyoto leads me to question one thing: why is the US, and not China, the leading producer of emissions? I would have thought we would have been surpassed by China years ago with the amount of physical product they output compared to the US.