climate change, part 2: human impact

i know, the title of this almost sounds like a Hollywood action blockbuster. no? really? what if you replaced the 'human' with... oh, never mind.

anyway, before i continue to the human impact of global warming, here is a pic that depicts the damage human civilisation has done to the world.

as you can see, climate change is definitely one of the three things we should be worried about, but biodiversity and the nitrogen cycle are things that we should give much more attention. for anyone that doesn't know, our manipulation of the nitrogen cycle has caused areas of the sea to be devoid of life, due to algal blooms.


now, on to the human impact on the natural process of climate change.
the amount of greenhouse gases that human civilisation emits into the atmosphere, compared to the amount emitted by natural processes, is very, very small.

however, this doesn't mean we're not doing any damage, because it all adds up. it can be described the same way as scientific progress: 'on the shoulders of giants.'

in science when one person makes a momentous discovery, it is usually due to the discoveries made before him, without which he wouldn't have the knowledge or the tools/techniques to do anything.
so, while we make a small contribution to greenhouse emissions, it may still be enough to have an effect, however a small one.

as the pic above shows, we're barely doing anything to tip the scales askew in the cycle of climate change, let alone send it crashing into reverse within a few days, as the media often portrays.
i think we have a comfortable amount of time to change our greenhouse emissions for the better, no need for alarmist mass media scare shows about how we're all going to die horribly. we have easily enough time to let the nature of technology to run its course, the development of more efficient, less polluting technologies.

by the time our civilisation has the potential to destroy the climate change cycle with our current technology, we'll have moved on to other technologies, both more ecological, efficient, and probably cheaper.

so, don't worry about climate, or global warming, or whatever its called now. I'm not really sure how to put it in simpler terms, but i really shouldn't have to.

also the Australian carbon tax = stupidity. its only going to drop world temperatures by 0.01* over 100 years, at $900 a year to each taxpayer. even if we did need a drop in temperature, the gains mean nothing, for a very large loss. i could understand if it was 1*, but 0.01? its just the government pretending to do something, for votes.

if you read this and part 1, i hope you gained something from this. and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. if you want to defend the carbon tax, don't hesitate to.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527491.200-from-ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-lifesupport-systems.html - the article i got the pic from, with a lot of information about the damage of human civilisation to the world. might need to subscribe, whch is why:

http://cruxcatalyst.blogspot.com/2010/04/earths-nine-life-support-systems.html - here is a blog that has copy pasted, some of it at least, on nitrogen and biodiversity. the global warming article is very informative as well,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18577-earths-nine-lifesupport-systems-climate-change.html -here it is. to get the whole nine life support system bit:

http://www.newscientist.com/special/ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-life-support-systems - here it is.

i keep all of these on just in case some don't work for you.


remember how i asked if you wanted to see a dog riding a unicycle? well, here's a pic drawn by waveh on deviant art, of two dogs riding a unicorn. in my book, this is close enough to get cigar.

OK, so its a robot unicorn. and i personally don't like the look on the smaller dogs face, or the larger one for that matter. anyway, enjoy.

climate change, or global warming, or whatever

so, in my first post i said that i would explain the climate change or global warming thing in a clear concise way, the scientific facts that most people seem to not realise. i suppose to day is as good a day as any to do that.

this will not be a crazy-time rant thing (see the 'libya' post, about two days ago) I'll do it better this time, hopefully.

first of all, climate change is 100% a natural phenomenon, it has been happening since just before there has been life on earth. it is necessary for life to exist.

chemical processes, some biological, some not, cause build ups of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, heating the earth up, making it more habitable for life. after a while, the earth gets hot enough that over a few thousand years, the ice caps on the equator melt, making more liquid water in the world. the earth is then cooled down over another few thousand years by the liquid water, most of the greenhouse gases are absorbed by the water and consequently trapped in soils, to be consumed by life processes.

this creates a cooling of the earths global temperature. the cooling effect cause the processes that cause greenhouses gases to go up in the atmosphere to cause warming to increase, setting in motion the whole cycle .

here is a picture version of this cycle, during the medieval warm period and the little ice age, which caused the downfall of viking culture:

probably not the best pic i know. I'll try to find a better one later. this is a very short version of the cycle. there are graphs of the larger cycle, spanning very long stretches of time, but these are very hard to come by, even on the Internet.

so the question that should be controversial is not 'does climate change exist?' or 'are humans responsible for it?' but 'is human activity able to knock this fragile balancing act askew?'

what will happen to earth if this cycle is broken can be seen if we look at the two nearest planets, mars and Venus.
if we put too much greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, so that even if the water is saturated by it and the earth keeps getting hotter, over a very, very long time, the earth would come to resemble Venus.

if we do the opposite, not enough greenhouse gases so the earth keeps getting cooler, we'll end up like mars.

the hockey stick graph doesn't really show much, since the ones i have found only go back a thousand years. far enough to show the earth is getting hotter, in the last 200 years, not far enough back to show the larger cycle of heating up and cooling down.

OK, so the fact that climate change is a natural process is now out of the way, as well as the consequences of what will happen if that process is disturbed too much. also that the graphs that only show the last thousand years don't show the full story, and even though they are the majority, other more reliable graphs that show longer amounts of time do exist. somewhere.

I'll continue this tomorrow. i don't want to bore anyone away with a wall of text. its a pretty simple subject, theres just a fair bit of stuff to talk about.

wanna see a dog riding a unicycle? sorry, all i have is an advertisement for mainstream media. but its by john la joie!!!