|
MercTech -> RE: A few thoughts on climate change. (3/12/2014 10:50:20 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: jlf1961
1) Deforestation, less forests mean fewer trees to convert C02 into oxygen, this is happening primarily in developing countries, Brazil being the worst.
Now the funny thing is that deforestation is going on so people can grow food crops and raise cattle, however even without deforestation, the planet can supply the caloric needs of the world's population, it is a economic problem, you need money to buy food.
Farming naturally depletes the minerals in soil, requiring fertilizers which contribute nitrates to the atmosphere adding another green house gases.
Environmental activists paid for a study to measure how much global warming had damaged the Amazon rain forest and found the increased CO2 in the atmosphere has accelerated the rate of jungle growth appreciably. Leaving the FUD mongering aside; it isn't as bad as those fellows wanting your donations want you to believe.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/tropical-comeback-can-new-growth-save-the-amazon-rainforest-a-642199.html
quote:
Lumber is always in high demand. There are a number of fast growing hard woods that are perfect for construction. Granted there can be 10 years or more from initial planting to harvest, still lumber has a higher profit margin and prior to harvest, you have trees converting CO2 to O2.
The majority of out lumber and wood pulp products in the U.S. come from farmed trees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_farm
https://www.internationalpaper.com/Apps/D2E/Down2EarthOnline/t-01.html
Most of the hill country land where I grew up was planted in cotton in the 1960s. Today, the majority is in tree farms.
BTW, burning wood does not increase the "carbon footprint" but is recycling what is already there.
quote:
2) Convert to carbon neutral fuels. The diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. Or even using the Walter turbine for powering cars, the Walter turbine burns Hydrogen Peroxide and originally designed for Uboats during WWII, a few of which were completed just before the end of the war.
Presently, the German navy is using a similar system in their coastal submarines.
Cons- Exhausts Oxygen and water. Meaning a higher atmospheric oxygen content and wet streets.
Ummm, not quite.
The hydrogen peroxide is the oxidizer in the equation (the air). It allows the fuel to burn.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellmuth_Walter
{quote] Research suggested that hydrogen peroxide was a suitable fuel – in the presence of a suitable catalyst it would break down into oxygen and steam at high temperature. The heat of the reaction would cause the oxygen and steam to expand, and this could be used as a source of pressure. Walter also realized that another fuel could be injected into this hot mixture of gases to provide combustion and therefore more power. He patented this idea in 1925.
The advantage for a submarine was that it didn't require an air intake for operation such as the more common diesel. Hydrocarbon fuel was injected for higher efficiency so it was never really "carbon neutral".
quote:
3) Methane production from livestock, we really cant change that. I am not going to fake beef made from plant proteins. I want meat, I have the proper teeth to eat meat (as do the rest of the human race)
And bovine methane is not a greenhouse gas but part of the natural cycle.
quote:
As for the rest of the green house gases being produced by humans, it amounts to less than 3% of the total, however one is more efficient at trapping heat, and is not naturally occurring.
What we have is the burning of fossil fuels is bringing carbon that was bound up in the soil during the Cretaceous (and other) eons of the planet. This addition of more of one element to the balanced equation that is the environment adds stress to the equation. Normal swings in climate conditions will vary more and swing more as things settle into a new balance point.
Like a child on a swing; if daddy gives a little extra push the child will oscillate higher and farther.
quote:
Their air technologies that have been developed that would also scrub CO2 from the atmosphere, one is using algae to create a fuel substitute that is carbon neutral, and another that actually uses a pinwheel type device that converts CO2 as a tree or plants do.
Um, algae are single cell plants.
I think what you are referring to is using huge algae mats as a source material for making bio diesel.
As to non biological carbon dioxide extraction:
For submarines and manned space craft huge amounts of research have been done on devices to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The bottom line is that the carbon dioxide fuel burned to generate the electricity to operate them is more than an order of magnitude higher than the amount of CO2 they remove.
quote:
Climate change is not just global warming, it is exactly what the name says, climate change. The planet warms up, ice sheets melt, oceans rise, ocean salinity drops, the conveyor belt currents slow down and stop, so the northern land masses get colder, the tropics get hotter and ocean front property goes underwater.
It has happened before, naturally, and it will happen again, naturally.
Yep the oscillations of the climate while seeking a new balance point after increased carbon loading has stressed the balance is totally natural phenomenon.
quote:
However, looking at the earth's climate cycle since the dinosaurs, the planet should be starting a cooling period. This indicates that mankind has had some impact on climate, and it is not all modern man's fault. We started affecting climate change when we stopped wondering around hunting and gathering and decided to start farming and building cities.
And the thermal footprint of large cities creates updrafts that lead to crappy local weather. There is no consensus whether urban heat islands effect the global climate .
quote:
As I said, even if we just thought of cleaning up the atmosphere as in air pollution, we know smog is not good, there would be a positive impact on climate change.
The same is true about cleaning up rivers, lakes and oceans. Clean water is better than polluted water.
And you have to be careful of the perception of "clean water".
A healthy pond has no more than 18 inches of visibility. A healthy pond is a soup of algae and bacteria in balance providing a foundation for a food chain.
The crystal clear waters and smooth sandy bottoms of tropical island vacation brochures are really "dead ecologies" devoid of life. A reef ecology with the murky water full of microscopic animals and plants is much healthier.
The bottom line is really rather simple.
The cycle of chemical and oxygen to carbon dioxide and back is a balanced equation.
Back in another geological epoch; something happened that caused really massive death and the climate changed. Massive amounts of carbon were bound up in the soil prior to and during the big death.
For over a century we have been removing carbon bearing chemicals from the soil and introducing more carbon into the equation than before. As in any balanced chemical equilibrium; when you stress one element, the balance of the equilibrium shifts.
Figuring out where, how, and how much the balance is changing has been funding PhDs since 1970s.
I remember, in 1976, being given numbers for ocean volume, atmosphere volume, mean CO2 content of the air, and hydrocarbon use as documented by the Coal Council told to calculate the increase in average ocean temperature of the ocean due to increased albedo from carbon loading of the atmosphere.
This was an "extra credit" problem on a sophomore physics exam. Climate Change isn't new science but has been studied for decades.
|
|
|
|
